


Leftovers

by YouCannotSeeWhatIsNotThere



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Friendship, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), a little PTSD for everyone, how Tony gets back to earth, maybe some hurt/comfort, other characters will be added once they make an appearance, space journey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2019-05-18 03:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14844858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouCannotSeeWhatIsNotThere/pseuds/YouCannotSeeWhatIsNotThere
Summary: They are the leftovers of the resistance against Thanos and they are trying to make their way to Earth. There is no plan beyond making that journey and they don't even know if Thanos is still on Earth and can be fought. But hey, whatever else is there to float their space boat? Nebula's none existent humor certainly won't do it.





	1. Headless Chickens Keep On Running

**Author's Note:**

> So, here goes my first MCU work. It's set after Infinity War. According to the comics Thanos came from the actual Saturn moon Titan. Though in the movies it's an actual planet somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy. I'm gonna stick to that, because it leaves me with so much more to write.
> 
> That said, have fun reading :)

Tony has been sitting in this same spot for hours now. At least it feels like hours, might have been minutes, might have been seconds, but who knows, who _cares_ anymore?

Half the universe. Half. That means that there's a 50% chance that… That Pepper is gone. That not her hair is fluttering on the wind but her ashes. That she has fallen apart like the others. Like the Guardians. Like Peter. Like Strange. And what did that man think, giving the stone away for Tony?

The blue girl is pacing up and down. (More than seconds then.) She is the only other left here. Angry and hurt, just like him, but still better off for she is not wounded and stems from this galaxy, probably knows how to get away from this planet, too. Unlike him, who's got a hole in his side, is so very far from home (so very far from Pepper, from knowing…) and has no idea what to do now.

If there is anything left to do but sweeping up ashes.

He needs to _know_.

Tony tries to rise to his feet, succeeds mostly, and then promptly falls back to the ground. His side. Ah, yes. Curse that.  
He tries again, this time the blue girl (he should really ask her name again some time) grabs him by the arm and steadies him.

"Where will you go?" she asks. And he can _hear_ it. Can hear the echo of a lost soul in that calmly spoken question. Can hear her contemplating following him in hopes that he still has some kind of plan because she has none. She doesn't know what to do now.

But neither does he.

"Home," Tony says because it's what he wants, what he hopes he can do despite all odds.

"Earth?"

He only nods because something the size of the said planet seems to constrict his throat. Blue Girl only nods as well. Then starts moving.

Tony follows. He doesn't know where they're going or if she even wants him to follow, but doesn't care much, moving in any way is so much better than sitting still. Hell, even running around with as much sense of direction as a headless chicken feels like getting something done. And Tony really needs to feel like he is accomplishing something. He is running on nothing but hot air and a weak sense of purpose, without that he'll fold from exhaustion.

The skin on his face feels unbelievably hot. He manages not to stumble as he rubs one of the more shiny pieces of his suit as clean as it goes with his shirt and peers at his distorted reflection. Sunburn. (More than minutes then.) Something so mundane, something that should only happen after falling asleep on the beach. It feels so unreal. Just like being on another planet feels like a dream. A nightmare. Why can't he just wake up?

This is not how he imagined interplanetary travel.

This is not how he imagined his _life_ to go.

Blue Girl is fumbling with some tech in her arm and any other day Tony would've been all over the cyborg, fascinated by the working combination of machine and living being, but not today. Today he is sunburned and thirsty, has a hole in his side, is fucking stuck on another planet, his companions and friends dead and Pepper… He really wishes for something to knock him out so he can wake up again to a universe whose inhabitants have not just been spectacularly decimated.

"My ship is still here." Blue Girl reads out what the tech in her arm has detected.

Ah, so that's where they're going. Makes sense, Tony thinks. The others ought to have gotten here somehow, in a different way than he and Peter and Strange did. (And why didn't Peter let go and fall back to Earth, why did he come along to leave Tony with that picture of him falling apart and those words…) They came with Thanos' minion's ship, and that thing was fast, only two days for what should have taken more than his lifetime. Right? Even if he doesn't know where exactly they are, a human ship would've taken much longer, that much he knows.

"Is that-" He coughs, his throat dry, his tongue heavy. "Is that-, that ship, is it as- as fast as that one? As- as Thanos'?" He points at the wreckage they made of the thing, hand nervously twitching, because maybe he won't have to wait for forever to know, maybe he can return home and quick. "I mean, I don't know how far we are from Earth. I don't know our position at all, but it only took two days and…" Blue Girls' sceptical expression has his words run dry again.

"The ship on which they imprisoned me would have been able to make that trip in a couple days time, but I had neither the time nor the means to steal it. All I have is the freight shuttle, and it's fitted with a standard propulsion engine. It's not meant for long distance. We could just barely make it to the nearest inhabited planet and go from there with whatever else transport we can acquire," she admits.

Tony raises a slightly singed eyebrow. "You'd help me and wanna come with me?"

"What else is there left to do for me?" Blue Girl says, the corners of her mouth pulling down. "I failed to stop Thanos. But I can at least help his enemy try to get back on their feet. Save what is left if you can't save it all." She wrings her hands. "Gamora would've done that."

"Gamora was the one Starlord got so angry about, right?" Tony carefully asks. He hates how he knows only so little of everything. There seems to be a story revolving around Thanos that is made of so many strings, he has a feeling he is only a teeny tiny piece in this. And that irks him, because maybe, had he been a bigger piece, had he known more, he would've been more effective in stopping shit from coming down.

"Yes. She was his friend. My sister." Blue Girl explains and her steps speed up, avoiding further questions by making sure Tony has to focus on keeping up with the new tempo. Tony shuts up and follows her lead, he knows that kind of running from your feelings all too well, practices it himself far too often to justify keeping poking at her wounds.

They move further away from the ruins that made the background of their disastrous battle and find Blue Girls freight shuttle. It's an ugly hunk of metal, all square-edged and bulky, not a single streamline in sight. But then it's just a freight shuttle, it's supposed to hold as much freight as possible and there is no air resistance in space anyway. No need for this thing to look as pretty as Tony's sports cars when it's meant as a truck.

He climbs into the truck ship after Blue Girl and sits down in the second seat in the cockpit. Buckles in as she buckles in. Follows her movements with his eyes and learns how this thing is started up. There is a brief hesitation in his resolve when he figures that he might just have gotten his ass into the metaphorical van of a stranger who promised him candies, but remaining on this hellhole of a planet wouldn't be much better. Whatever Blue Girl might plan can't be much worse than going crazy left behind alone on this dead rock. And then the engine is already firing up and Tony braces himself for a lot of G-forces shaking up his bones, but the shuttle lifts so much more smoothly than any NASA rocket ever did. He absentmindedly makes a note to himself about having to find out what power source this thing is burning, then exhaustion catches up with him after all. He sees strange stars twinkling at him through the windshield, but before he can properly appreciate the view his eyes fall closed and Tony is out.

He wakes up to Blue Girl shaking his shoulder. "Wake up, human!" she says.

"Human's got a name..." he grumbles as he forces his gritty eyes open. "But then we never got to having an introduction, huh?" He holds out his hand (And god how he feels the aftermath of the fight in his muscles!) waiting for her to hesitatingly grab it. "I'm Tony Stark. Nice to meet you!" he shakes their hands.

"Nebula." She shakes his hand back. Then pulls her arm away and turns back to the control system. "We are nearing a planet."

"I'm guessing it's not Saturn? Because you said we're searching for an inhabited planet and I'm pretty sure if Saturn was inhabited then people would've known..."

Nebula just stares at him.

"Alright, so it's not Saturn. You see Saturn is in Earth's solar system and it's got that moon called Titan and Thanos' planet is called Titan, so I kinda hoped we were this close..."

"We are not even in your galaxy, Tony Stark," is the answer he gets, spiced up with a surprising amount of pity. Not that he wants pity. What he wants is to be somewhere near Saturn, because _another Galaxy_... "But, but- No! How?! This fast- that ship- And... and how- how will we get to Milky Way then, and where the fuck are we?" When has he become such a stuttering mess? He doesn't know but tells himself not being all smooth for once is okay given the circumstances.

"I believe you call this one the Andromeda Galaxy. At least that is what Quill once said. He too keeps talking about a Milky Way when referring to Earth's Galaxy. Kept talking," she corrects herself.

"Can you show me? Does this thing have a map?" Tony starts poking at the console in front of him, but Nebula slaps his fingers away from the buttons.

"It's a _freight shuttle_ , it usually traverses only between ship and planet. It does not have maps." She is obviously annoyed with him.

"Then how did you get to Titan?!" Tony snaps as he rubs his hand where Nebula hit it, trying not to pout.

"I do have a certain amount of maps in my storage." She taps her temple with a single finger. "But only of Andromeda."

"Well, damn it. So we do not only need a ship but also a map?"

"Yes."

"Fantastic..." He huddles back into his seat and drags a hand down his face. His body is still screaming exhaustion and he studiously ignores the throb in his patched-up side. "Okay, so why'd you wake me?"

Apparently no longer in the mood to talk to Tony, Nebula points out the front pane. (He refuses to call it windshield any longer when there is no wind out here.) Among the glittering stars there is a planet, gray and blue and relatively small, or so Tony thinks. He has no scale whatsoever.

"Ah," he says.

As they near the planet's atmosphere Nebula finally deigns to speak to him again. "Morka. I don't know much about it, but planets close to Titan tend to be inhabited by scum."

"Great... I hope we won't have to punch people, I'm still feeling sore all over from our last... fight," he ends lamely, carefully stomping down on all feelings that arise when thinking about their defeat.

"We'll see," is all that Nebula says.

Tony nods to himself, his own thoughts echoing unpleasantly loud in his head in the ensuing silence. He hates silence, he can't even hear the sound of the ship's engine...

"Are all your engines this quiet?" he asks, partly to break the silence, partly because there is a suspicion forming in the back of his mind.

"The engine is not running. We have been out of fuel for a while now and are only drifting. I told you we could barely make it to the next inhabited planet. This is barely making it."

"Ah," Tony says once more. The sole reason why he'd prefer running out of fuel in space over running out of fuel at sea: A tiny push can carry your ship for forever rather than just over the next wave. "Okay, so we need to get some fuel. Or another ship with fuel. And what I wouldn't give for a bottle of water..."

Nebula reaches into a compartment next to her pilot seat, pulling out a sort of canteen. She tosses it to Tony, who scrambles to catch it, not caring about looking undignified in the slightest. His mouth is a freaking desert and there is finally something that might just keep his tongue from being mummified by the drought.

Though what hits his poor tongue is less like water and more like watery slime. Tony reluctantly pulls back, because while despite its liquid-soap like texture this stuff felt good, he's not sure how well his body will fare with being fed this alien stuff.

"It won't kill you," Nebula says as he contemplates where to spit his mouthful. "It didn't kill Quill. Or anyone else. It has the same effects on your body as water and will be the only drinkable thing you can find on some planets. Like on the Chitauri homeworld."

So Tony decides to swallow his mouth full of slush. Nebula could've just stabbed him in his sleep had she wanted him dead. Just like water, it tastes of nothing in particular and has a marvellous soothing effect on his dry throat. He gladly gulps down some more, then hands the canteen back to Nebula. She too takes a swig, then puts the water-slime away. Feeling a little less like dried out shit Tony actually manages to keep his mouth shut and let her concentrate as she sets about landing the ship with only the thrusters for help. Puffing air in every which direction their shuttle goes down.

Tony just hopes that if they survive the landing his second strange planet will be friendlier than the first.


	2. Not All Ships Blow Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you who read and commented!

The planet is... dead.

Not that its population has gone completely extinct, but...

There is the kind of quiet and hopelessness that Tony has come to associate with bombed out Afghani villages. There were still people around there, but the few who decided to stay were but a shadow of themselves while the rest was just trying to take from the ruins whatever was left of any valuables to have something to pay for their new start elsewhere.

These people here will probably stay and keep on living, there is nothing wrong with the planet, the town, after all. There have been no bombs. But they are reeling all the same. Reeling from the sudden loss of so many. They probably don't even know why people suddenly started disintegrating into ashes and their fear of more people vanishing is palpable. Various versions of suspicious eyes greet Tony and Nebula as the hatch of their shuttle lowers. Some, maybe the security detail of this spaceport, train what are unmistakably weapons at them, even if they look like a fucking yo-yo. On some level, Tony finds it very fascinating how he can always tell when something deadly is pointed at him just by the way its wielder holds it and by the look in their eyes.

"Strangers," speaks a gray, humanoid creature that is probably the head of town or some other figure of authority. "You come at a dangerous time. Do you know what has happened here?"

"I'm guessing people became dust?" Nebula gifts him with a glare that tells him to watch his big mouth or she'll stuff it with his intestines until he'll shut up.  
The gray man (at least Tony assumes it's male) inclines his head in agreement but remains as suspicious of them as all the rest. "What do you know about it?"

"It has happened to the whole universe," Tony carefully tells them. A murmur goes through the crowd.

"Why?" Is the single question, but they can both hear the "Are you connected to this and have you come to make use of the ensuing fear?" that remains unspoken. Tony glances at Nebula.

"Thanos," she says. "The Mad Titan has halved life."

"As he proposed to do on Titan when the planet was dying?" Figures, they are close enough to Titan for people to know what happened there. Nebula nods. The gray guy accepts that as answer, then continues: "Your Shuttle. It is a ship of Titan. Those ships that remained of Titan belong to Thanos."

Ah, so that is probably the main reason for their distrust. And again there is an unspoken question. Are Tony and Nebula Thanos' minions?

"We fled from his capture to try and stop him," Nebula says. It's not the exact right version of how they met and got aboard the shuttle, but Tony agrees that keeping their explanation simple is a good idea.

"You failed," is the assessment of the gray guy, and Tony suddenly feels rage cooking up in his previously so strangely hollow chest.

"Hey, we did our best, okay?!" he snaps. "It's not our fault we were unprepared and outnumbered and out-powered and- and what did you do, huh?! You just sat here and didn't even know!" His breathing is going quick and the familiar feeling of panic is creeping up on him.

"This was no accusation." The gray guy finally seems to have lost his distrust and his shoulders slump. Suddenly, Tony sees someone who is the same as him, who has lost people and is unsure of the future, doesn't even know all about the fucking presence. Who's hiding behind the false bravado that comes from acting like they are their normal self.

"Sorry for snapping. We had-... a lot of stress just now," he says, scratching at his dirty arm.

"I understand. So did we." The crowd starts to disperse as groups go to comfort those who have lost others and try to carry on somehow. The security guard remains, but there is something halfhearted to them.

Gray guy pulls what appears to be a tablet pc from a satchel at his side. "My name is Emrel Tikan Mara-Ba. I am the superintendent of this dock," he says as he powers up the screen and taps it a couple times before holding it out to them. "Please fill out the form, I don't think you're here to sell or load freight, but procedure must be followed if we're to keep some kind of order on this planet. Only thing I can do for you is let the mooring fee drop because in a way this is an emergency landing and you probably don't intend to stay long..."

Mara-Ba seems tired and weary. Tony can understand that. Losing half your planet and having to do the alien equivalent to paperwork will do that to you.

"We actually want to continue to my home planet as fast as possible. Though our little shuttle here won't make that flight. You don't happen to know if there are any ships for sale? Preferably one that can reach another galaxy?" Tony hopefully adds. Nebula next to him is filling out the forms. She doesn't seem all too happy about having to do that but, like him, she's just fought so much recently, even having to argue with Mara-Ba over paperwork seems too much right now. She holds out the tablet to Tony, who after a moment figures out where to press his thumbprint and put in his name. He guesses Nebula lets him sign because he is the less suspicious of the two. And he tries to smother a grin when he sees Mara-Ba's initials in the field that shows who handled their case (Because come on, an alien with the initials E.T.!) and hands the tablet back.

Mara-Ba reaches out with his four-fingered hand to push back some of his light green hair (Though those might just be thousands of teeny tiny feelers, Tony is not entirely sure) while he thinks. "There is a ship that could get you out of this Galaxy. Though it would take quite a time, I'm afraid. We are a small port, we survive because many of the old ravager ships need to stop here to refuel. Or other private ships that are too small or too old for a jumper drive. New ships are not needed by the people living here and seldom come by. We could probably find you a ship that has a long reach, but it won't be a fast one."

"How long to the edge of the Galaxy?" Tony asks, fidgeting on the edge of his seat, nervous. A slow ship is better than no ship, maybe they can get another one on the way? Not to mention an old ship might be cheap enough to be traded against the truck-shuttle. He doesn't know if Nebula's got some fancy digital alien money with her, all he is pretty sure of is that they won't take his credit card.

"Approximately two months," Mara-Ba guesses.

Tony takes a deep breath. Okay, two months. Hopefully earth time month. He needs to find some sort of scale for time and distances that he can understand. He also needs to find out why the fuck everyone seems to be capable of speaking English. But, one step at a time. First, they get a ship. A slow ship. Which is still better than nothing. He keeps clinging to that notion.

"Okay, that's a start," he says.

"What do we do if we can't pay for whatever ship they have on sale?" he whisper-questions Nebula as they follow Mara-Ba's lead away from their shuttle and further towards the town connected to the docks.

"We steal it," is her pragmatic answer.

"Ah. Well, problem is, I don't want to steal someone's ship. They have enough problems what with all the missing people, I don't want to dump a potential financial disaster on someone's head by stealing the ship they need to feed their family. Because I doubt I'll get the chance to come back here and make it up to them later on." Usually Tony doesn't mind "borrowing" and crashing other peoples stuff, but usually, he's rich enough to pay up for it later on. Out here he has nothing of value.

Nebula rolls her eyes, then just says: "We will be able to pay here. And you will be able to pay for both of us on Earth."

And that's the end of that discussion, but Tony is fine with it. It's not like he cannot afford to host her and it's quite fair if she pays up for the both of them out here.

There is some chaos on the streets still, the wrecks of a couple transport vehicles that might or might not have hoovering abilities have not been cleared from where they crashed as their operators vanished. And even though many things here are far more technologically advanced than earth would be even in a hundred years (If Tony had no say in it), he can still make out that distinctive dinginess that proclaims this place to be a dump compared to other planets. Mara-Ba is right in saying this is a small place that just so gets by, living off whoever has to stop here. But Mara-Ba is also a decent and friendly guy so far and so Tony won't judge the town and her people.

They reach a couple of structures that appear to be ship hangars and Tony feels something stir in him. The scientific curiosity he's thought died back on Titan rears its head and stares wide-eyed at the workshops and the ships. This would be heaven to him if he knew Pepper was safe and sound. Since he doesn't know it's just a mild version of paradise but that doesn't make it any less awesome.

So even though work has mostly stopped and shops are closed off as people just sit there and try to understand what has happened to those who vanished, Tony stands (probably gaping like a fish) and stares at the shops while Mara-Ba goes and talks to a mechanic who is equally gray-skinned and green haired. (Or green tentacled.) The guy points them to a hangar to their left and Nebula's elbow meets his not injured side to make him stop gaping and start moving. Rubbing the now tender side, Tony follows.

He hears the ship's name and knows it will be perfect for them.

The Catastrophe XI is a MK 107 Explorer (and Tony nods along like he knows if that's good or bad, looking for Nebula's reaction out of the corner of his eyes) and about as old as Tony, which only endears the ship to him even more. There is something poetic in thinking that this ship had been built at his birth and waited for him all this time, and even though Tony usually isn't into such pathetically fantastic imaginations as fate, right now he wants to cling to the notion that life does have something good up its sleeve for him after all.

Nebula doesn't bat an eye at the ships age, just asks "Why would you name it like that?!"

It turns out a MK 107 Explorer is some alien species' type of military reconnaissance ship, constructed to bring a crew of four deep into enemy territory. It's a spartan and durable little thing, all streamlined (Yes!) to reach high speeds on planet and yet holding enough space in its belly to allow for lots of provision and separate sleeping quarters. Unfortunately for the military, the series had an unknown manufacturing error, causing two-thirds of the MK 107 Explorers to go _boom_ in a matter of three days, only one month after launching. Understandably the military canceled any further orders of MK 107s and sued the manufacturer, who went bankrupt and understandably never invested into finding out where the error actually was. The remaining fourteen MK 107s were sent to be scrapped because the military didn't care to find out either. The one who _did_ care was the scrapper, who, instead of immediately scrapping the ships, tried to find the error, hoping he could maybe make some money by fixing it and selling the otherwise perfectly fine ships.

The first ship went boom on its (unmanned) test flight and was therefore jokingly referred to as Catastrophe I. The name was continued until Catastrophe XI, who did finally not blow up, and together with her three better named and likewise fixed siblings was then sold.

Nebula looks at the ship skeptically, but Tony already knows he wants it. This is the sort of ship that needs him meddling with it, that he can take apart and make better. It's like an old car that allows you to patch it up again and again with only basic knowledge while the technological overload under the hood of a new one would confuse the hell out of you. Tony knows he's a genius and though he can admit he's arrogant he also knows he's not as arrogant as to believe he will immediately get the hang of alien spaceships. Eventually, yes. Faster than anyone else, yes. But still not immediately.

And if he can bury himself in the ship's metal guts he might just not go mad with _not knowing_ until they reach Earth.

Nebula agrees to buy the ship after all, mainly because there is nothing better on offer and because the owner agrees to take the freight shuttle as payment. They add a little money on top (or rather Nebula does) and instead of being given a key they get a master code which they change into their own.

"Do you intend to start immediately? You look like you might need medical attention," the ship's previous owner asks. "My wife can fix you up, you paid a good price for the old Catastrophe and she will be happy to be able to fix something after most of her patients vanished. It disturbed her greatly to not be able to finish healing them." He looks worried, almost kind of hopeful.

Tony considers it. He hates strangers touching him. One-night-stands are fine, he can control that, knows how it will go. But otherwise... just, no. On the other hand not getting this looked at might just end really bad for him. His temporary fix has sterilized the wound but he doesn't know if some space germs have gotten in and survived, ready to give him sepsis soon.

"Um sure...", he finally agrees, and the man's shoulders drop in relief. "Just, I'm not sure my physique matches yours, so... please don't experiment on me, this body has already had to live through enough unprofessional patch-ups. If you have no clue, let it be," Tony tells him. "And I might be a horrible patient, I don't trust people much," he feels the need to add.

"I will use the time to gather provisions. How much does your kind need in a week?" Nebula asks. She doesn't seem interested in showing him how good her bedside manners are.

"A guy needs about 2500 calories a day, I think." He should have listened better to Pepper's lectures about his eating habits. Nebula is just staring at him though, so it doesn't matter anyway. "Um you know, calories are- ah never mind. Just say one meal a day is good, three is what's best. And at least one bottle of water. Water is important!" He underlines that with a raised finger.

"I will see what I can get." And Nebula walks off.

"Huh." Tony shrugs and makes his way towards medical attention.

Mr. and Mrs. Tomba-Ba (Tony begins to suspect the -Ba might be similar to the Japanese forms of address that are added to the end of the name) have a small clinic. And Mr. Tomba-Ba was right when he said his wife was distraught by the vanishing of her patients. She is sitting in a chair, rather catatonic, until she is asked to look after Tony. She almost jumps at him.

Even though she is a little hectic in her excitement her hands are steady and sure, so Tony holds still and lets her work. He grunts in pain when the gel he has injected into the wound to disinfect it and stop the bleeding is removed and everything gets cleaned up. Finally, something else is injected into the wound and Tony watches, fascinated, as it slowly begins to change into something that resembles his flesh or might actually be flesh.

"It will be replaced by your own flesh once this is completely green, until then it will act in its stead," Mrs. Tomba-Ba says and hands him a thumbnail-sized disk with a red rim. Tony thanks her and she smiles widely, gray cheeks stretching. Taking her white cap off her head (Covered in the same short, green might-be-hairs as her husband and Mara-Ba have) she leads him back to the door. He says goodbye, thanking her again. Mr. Tomba-Ba leads him back to the hangars, thanking Tony for cheering up his wife.

He feels a little like happy when he meets Nebula at the ramp that leads into the freight bay of their ship. Together they take a look at the provisions and Tony finally feels hungry, happily eating something that resembles chilly-con-carne right next to the crate he took the can from. He tells Nebula she did a good job finding stuff that will keep him fed and she looks a little surprised and almost ducks away. Not used to praise that one, Tony thinks to himself.

Two hours later they lift off Morka, water tanks filled, fuel tanks filled and food stocked. They could have done that in one hour, but Tony insisted on painting a good old flame job on the Catastrophe XI.

He knows Pepper will be worried about him if he isn't a little late because of theatrics.


	3. So Far, So... OK

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you who read and commented!
> 
> Interesting bit of Trivia: Comic Tony actually stores the nanites of his suit in the "hollows of his bones" rather than a container on his chest.

As soon as the Catastrophe XI has lifted off Morka Tony wants to dig into the ship and find out how it works. He will not take it apart when they are in the middle of space, (because space is the kind of environment that kills you when even a little thing goes wrong and even Tony can curtail his thirst for knowledge, thank you very much!) but that doesn't mean he can't take a look at everything and map it out, right?

Unfortunately for him, Nebula ever so subtly insisted he take a shower first. Tony can't say he's offended though. It is actually kind of calming, something familiar, seeing how often Pepper had to drag his smelly self out of the workshop after four days of binge engineering. Nebula had quietly endured him leaning over her shoulder, asking question after question about every single process needed to get the ship into space and babbling on about what he would take a look into first, until they had cleared the plane's orbit and were safely set on course. Then she had _suggested_ he started his exploring with the cleaning facilities, in such a deadpan tone that Tony had just shut up and agreed.

So here he is, in a spaceship bathroom. It is actually rather classic in design. Toilet, sink and shower stall. Steel rather than ceramic and a couple faucets and other stuff with a purpose Tony doesn't know, but the basics are still the same. So Tony strips off his dirty, sticky clothes, using the moment to catalog his belongings.

He's got a Starkphone, surprisingly not cracked but with a dead battery. Enough nanites to form maybe half a suit. (Dammit!) A wristwatch. His wallet (with the useless credit cards), which holds no picture of Pepper. Suddenly Tony wishes he was less of a digital and more of a print person. He'd have this cliche picture of his loved one in his wallet then. Something he could touch.

He shakes his head, focusing on what else is there. Car keys. Ah yes, they took the Audi to the park. And... and yeah, that's it. This and his shredded clothes are all he has left of his existence on Earth. Tony leaves the sad collection on the closed toilet lid and turns to the shower, refusing to think any more about it.

Mrs. Tomba-Ba had cleaned up his torso before fixing him up, but that was it. Now, Tony is completely clean and heading towards the cockpit in nothing but a towel, because, "Ah, do we have some sort of washing machine? Because putting these back on will kill all the progress the shower made!" He holds up the blood and sweat soaked, partly dusty, and ripped bundle of his clothing.

Nebula isn't phased in the slightest by his undignified entrance and simply pushes a lever into place that Tony thinks must be the autopilot, before standing up to lead Tony back down into the freight bay. Digging through a box she throws a bundle of cloth at Tony, and he drops his own bundle to catch it.

"You will look more like a native to this galaxy when wearing those." She takes another bundle for herself. "I will go clean up now, don't touch anything in the cockpit!"

"Okay!" Tony calls after her retreating back before beginning to dress himself, mumbling to himself about how he can be trusted in a cockpit because he is a genius! Anyway, he likes these clothes, they remind him of what Star-Quill wore, only a little more sci-fi and a little less old leather jacket. He still collects his old clothes and resolves to find a way to wash them, simply because he likes having a change, even if there are a couple holes in them. Still good to work in, right?

Nebula seems to think the same because she comes to find Tony where he is sitting in the cockpit, coaxing the nanites into building him a phone charger compatible with what he thinks is a power outlet next to the co-pilot seat. They put their old outfits in a tube next to the bathroom door (Tony almost facepalms, he could've thought this was what he was searching for!) and later on collect the dry and clean heap.

In the meantime, Nebula has finally deigned to answer Tony's questions and began teaching him the language of Andromeda-Galaxy computers. She isn't a very good teacher, impatient and quickly annoyed and angered. But, surprisingly, she has yet to rage-quit their lessons. She is trying and that is why Tony is trying and so they manage to get along. One and a half days of strangled communication later, Tony is able to code fluently on his own and has yet to crash the system. Nebula seems surprised and Tony grins and boasts his genius.

On the fourth day of their journey, Tony has mapped out the entire ship. On the fifth, he catches Nebula playing something that reminds him of Space Invader on the main monitor in the cockpit. She looks mortified to be caught and quickly hides it away. On the sixth day, they are playing by turns, trying to beat the others high score. They throw childish insults at each other and time goes by. So far, interplanetary travel on the Catastrophe XI is a great deal better than the journey on Thanos' ship was.

And Tony regrets ever having thought so when they reach the next planet a day later. Because _of course_ , bad things happen when you think that, for once, all is good.

It started innocently enough, with Nebula yelling at him like a bad back-seat-driver when Tony insisted on being the one to land the ship and does so a little shakily. He's still proud he's managed not to kill them and grins widely as they walk down the ramp. Unlike Morka, they are not immediately faced by guards, just a couple raised eyebrows and confused stares at their ship. So far, so good.

"You are going to repaint the ship, back to the original colors," Nebula next to him hisses."I'm actually glad they think you are the owner of this ridiculous thing!"

"Hey, flames are classic!" Tony protests. "And you didn't complain until now, that means you actually like it but are just embarrassed because _they_ don't!"

"It draws too much attention. We don't know if some of Thanos' minions are still out there and after us!"

"Let them come."

Tony should know better. He should've learned after his Malibu House went up in flames and crumbled into the sea after challenging what he believed to be the Mandarin. But he keeps telling himself that whatever is left of Thanos' forces should have dispersed now. Thanos reached his, their, goal, didn't he? What else could they want?

Revenge. A thing that all living beings crave in a way, Tony remembers as he is hanging upside down from the ceiling.

Not all people are nice, not all people are like Mara-Ba and Mr. and Mrs. Tomba-Ba. Some sell you to a couple Kree, as Nebula calls them. And those Kree apparently are not her people even though both are blue. On the contrary, they seem to dislike Nebula especially.

"Where is Thanos, where is your treacherous master?!" They yell in her face where she is dangling next to Tony. Interesting, that. Tony thought them to be Thanos's allies, but apparently, they aren't. They think Tony and Nebula are.

"He is not my master!" Nebula tells them.

"Only his machinations could have decimated our people even further! And you were his servant when he offered Xandar to the Kree and didn't keep his bargain!" they accuse.

"Were, yes. But no longer. I have worked against him for a time now, I have learned my lesson concerning him!" she spits, angry at herself as much as their current situation.

"She fought against him, I saw it!" Tony throws in his two cents. "Wouldn't be her shipmate if she didn't try to help us kick his ass!"

"And who are you?" they ask him.

"Tony Stark, Ironman. Famous where I come from, not so famous here apparently."

The Kree guy isn't impressed. "Put him in a cell, he is annoying."

After some useless struggle and hurled insults that annoy the Kree even further, Tony finds himself in a cell, trying to concentrate on getting out while he hers Nebula scream. They took his stuff from him, nanite container and all, (even the goddamn car keys!) but what they didn't get were the nanites _not in the container_. Pepper would freak if she knew he had some of his teeny tiny friends stored in some teeny tiny capsules in his forearms. But it turns out it's a good thing he put them there just to be sure he'll never run out. (And maybe to one-day surprise Peter with making shooting webs from your actual wrist rather than a bracelet possible, but thinking of the boy hurts too much to actually think that line)

The cell door clicks open and he calls his little helpers back, the silver mass melting across his hand into the familiar shape of a repulsor glove. Tony creeps out into the corridor and into the room where they try to get their answers from Nebula. He knows his moment of surprise will be too short to knock them all out, so he shoots the three closest to him, (in the head because he is a good guy but not good enough to grand mercy to torturers), then aims at Nebula's restraints, destroying them in the time it takes the ones further away from him to leap at him. Nebula pulls herself together (quite literally) and delivers a vicious kick to one of the Kree rushing at Tony, knocking him down with a heel to the temple. Tony is too busy staying alive to be impressed much. The Kree are stronger than him and can apparently take a great deal more damage. Luckily, Nebula apparently is of the same caliber, gutting Kree after Kree with one of their own knives while Tony finally manages to get a repulsor blast into the face of the last Kree that focuses on him.

Then they stand there, panting and dirty and bloody.

"Goddammit, another set of clothes ruined," Tony says, just because he's still alive enough to say something.

Nebula just stares at him, then decides to lead the way out of here. Grabbing his stuff, Tony follows.

The planet's inhabitants duck their heads and look away from them when they see the two of them stalking back to their ship. There is fear and some shame, but mostly just fear. They clear theport until Nebula and Tony have raided the Kree ship sitting next to the Catastrophe for fuel and provision and lift off. Tony is glad when they are finally back on their way. He hates when civilians fear him.

"You all right?" he asks Nebula, who hasn't said anything yet and pokes the controls more for something to do rather than actual reasons.

"I'm fine, I've had worse," is the clipped answer.

And Tony really doesn't want to have talks like this, he hates it, doesn't know how to deal with it. But he's also so god damn curious.

"Why'd you work for Thanos in the first place?" he asks.

"Because of that worse." The answer is vague and supposed to make him shut up. But Tony seldom shuts up.

"Ah. Not much of a chance to say no?"

"Thanos raised all of his children the same way. He tore us apart until we no longer knew who we were and who our true family was. Then, he put us back together as his."

"Stockholm-Syndrome much?" Tony says because he's an insensitive idiot. (He's not, he knows she hurts and he knows he's talking shit, but he doesn't know what to do!)

"I don't know what that is." Nebula tells him, pushing a lever with more force than necessary.

"Stockholm syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity." Tony thinks he sounds like JARVIS quoting Wikipedia.

Nebula thinks on that for a while. "Is that a common syndrome?"

"Everyone with a survival instinct can develop it, I'd say." Tony shrugs.

"Hm." Nebula stares out through the front pane for a moment longer, then rises to her feet. "Watch the ship, I will take a shower."

"Aye aye, captain!"

Tony isn't sure if he was helpful in any way, but when Nebula later asks him for a rematch of the pseudo Space Invader he knows he at least didn't totally screw it up.

For now, that's good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony did quote Wikipedia on Stockholm syndrome. Or rather, I did.


	4. Houston, we have a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo I'm not gonna bore you with the reasons for my long hiatus. Enjoy the chapter :)

„Okay, stuff we need to gather next time we're on planet..." Tony says and scrawls "Stuff:" at the top of the touch screen that's hanging at the wall, ready to serve as their digital whiteboard. They're lounging in the Catastrophe's galley/common room for a planning session, as Tony likes to call them.  
He thoughtfully taps his chin, contemplating what they might need in the near future. Then blinks and realizes: "I for my part would love a good razor, if I'm to keep using the thing I found in the bathroom I'm never gonna get my beard straight again!"  
So far he has managed to keep his goatee relatively in its usual shape, but damn it's a tedious job. So he adds "razor" to the screen. Nebula throws him a look that says she was thinking about more pressing supply problems when she called Tony up to the cockpit than his facial hair. Tony clears his throat and straightens up, because that look reminds him a lot of the "This is serious, please stop fucking around!"-glance he sometimes gets from Pepper and nothing good has ever come from ignoring that glance.  
"Okay, what did you have in mind?"  
Obviously pleased with his attempt to stay on topic, even though meetings have never been his specialty, Nebula starts talking: "So far we have only ever filled up enough fuel to get to the next planet and some extra for emergencies. We need to work out how to pay up for a full tank if we want to cross the space between galaxies. And we better start worrying about that now before we are at the edge of Andromeda. There won't be any inhabited planets for a pit stop once we're out there. We also need a new map. This ship is fitted with the whole of Andromeda and then some, but it won't be enough. If we don't feed the ship new and detailed data we have to navigate the space between galaxies and your galaxy by sight, at a speed that won't allow you to see Earth again before the end of your life…"  
"So we'll stop on every planet we're close enough to and hope someone has a map for sale that reaches to the Milky Way?" Tony concludes.  
"We have no other choice."  
Tony frowns. This doesn't sound good. "How high's the chance we'll find one?" he asks.  
"Your galaxy only holds a hand full of species that are even remotely intelligent enough to be known by those who reside in Andromeda. None really knows they are not the only thinking species out there, and no species of Andromeda will offer them the knowledge or technology to include them in the net. There is nothing to gain from it, and usually, species who didn't evolve to invent the necessary means by themselves are still too immature and greedy to handle them. Whatever would come from offering something so powerful to them would be horrible."  
Tony raises his brows. He didn't pick Nebula as someone to care to know all this. That this that doesn't sound good at all.  
"So chances aren't high," he concludes and feels a weight settling in his stomach.  
"We need to find someone scientifically curious, who would study those of the Milky Way simply out of interest." Nebula shrugs.  
"Okay, find the Andromeda version of Discovery Channel and see who provided them with the footage. Should be doable," Tony says if only to convince himself that this might not be the point where their journey turns out to be futile. It's unlike him to be that much of a pessimist, usually, despite all comments he might make, he's got this voice in the back of his mind that tells him he and his genius will find a way eventually. But it seems that voice fell victim to Thanos as well. "And find a way to make some money without investing all that much of the time-we-don't-have because we need to feed the gas guzzler. Should be doable as well."  
He adds "money" and "map" to the list like it's no more of a big deal than the razor.  
"Anything else?"  
"We still got enough food and water aboard for quite a while, but even with the things we took from the Kree we will have to restock eventually."  
Tony adds "food, eventually" to the list. He once again thoughtfully taps his chin. "Are there many Kree around here?" he asks slowly.  
Nebula narrows her eyes at him, obviously trying to gauge if she is guessing his thoughts right. "They aren't what they used to be, but there are quite a few... Are you worrying about us being attacked again or are you planning to attack them?"  
"Well, I don't want to steal from the common, hard-working alien who's just trying to lead a normal life, but I wouldn't be above stealing from the meanies who're after us. We could be some sort of space pirate Robin Hoods, only we don't give away our loot for free, we use it to support local business by buying their stuff." He grins widely.  
"You are aware that this is a reconnaissance ship, not a fighter build to commandeer other ships?"  
"Okay, so no epic space battles, I'm all for not damaging our only ship. But could we pull off raiding a parked ship of theirs again? I mean, that way we get both fuel and food and don't have to waste time working for however long it takes to earn the money to buy both."  
He expects a _no_. But so far Nebula is silent and thinking things over. And that means he's probably going to hear a _yes_. It's weird because usually people around him are more sensible than him and want to talk him out of this kind of idea. But Nebula is a whole different caliber than his people on Earth. From the way she dealt with their last ordeal with the Kree Tony suspects raiding peoples' ships is a completely normal thing for her. She's not thinking about whether it's a good idea or not, she's thinking about whether they can pull this off without taking too much damage or getting captured.  
"First we'll deal with getting a map. The Kree will be after us, if they aren't already, the moment we steal from them. Our best chance is to fill up on all we need and immediately set off to Earth. They will have a hard time following us. We just need to keep them off our tail until we reach the space that common maps no longer cover. Parallel to looking for the map we can scout for a suitable target." She crosses her arms in front of her chest, probably mentally running through all the info she has on Kree ships they could prey on.  
"Alright, sounds like a plan!" And it really does, so Tony feels a little of the weight in his stomach disappear.  
"Do Kree wear any jewelry by the way? I'm thinking about bringing Pepper a nice souvenir!"

The next two planets have nothing they need, only Tony's razor. Tony refuses to be discouraged by that and instead concentrates on how amazing the sheer number of aliens out here is, especially since not that many years ago no one was entirely sure that extraterrestrial life existed. Finally being able to shave properly also helps.  
Nebula seems happy enough to be able to slink off and gather information. Apparently, it's what she knows and what she's good at, it calms her down. Tony can understand that. What he doesn't understand is her need to make sure he knows she's useful to keep around. He'd be screwed out here if he was alone, but Nebula still eagerly takes on what duties on the ship she can. For now, he chooses not to comment on it.

The one reason why Tony chose to charge his phone even though there is no hope that he can use it to phone home (he he) so many light-years away from Earth, is that once he managed to make the alien computer swallow the MP3 files he can blast his music all through the ship. Currently, he is all holed up in the Catastrophe's server room, typing away at the code that is his current project while enjoying the familiar sound of Metallica. Humming along, off-tune but passionately, he finishes his last line of code with the last line of the song and celebrates the awesomeness of that with a fist bump to the air. He tests the results of his binge coding and grins at what seems to be a success.  
Of course only time would show any bugs, but for now Tony is all giddy and excited and practically skips down the hallway to go and find Nebula. He wonders if this will be something new and awesome to the alien cyborg or if she will look at him in the way people look at apes who learned sign language. A little impressed but mostly amused and condescending at the ape's attempt to reach the human level.  
Nebula, of course, is down in the freight bay, using the space for training. It's her favorite pastime when Tony hides away somewhere in the ship's engine or server room.  
Tony checks his watch to make sure the upload is complete and rolls his weight from the balls of his feet to the heel and back, impatiently waiting for Nebula to finish an exercise that involves twisting the body in a way Tony might have thought impossible before. He knows she won't pay him any attention until she's done with untwisting herself. Finally, she straightens into a normal stance and graces him with a questioning glance.  
But before Tony can say anything another voice speaks up, male and tinny. "Commander, incoming object detected, change of course suggested, otherwise impact in 4, 3, 2, 1-"  
And Tony is still raising his brows at what he thinks is a rather weird bug when there is a bang and suddenly everything is in motion.  
He can't tell which direction is which if they're rolling or tumbling. Whatever is happening, the internal dampeners can't counter it, neither can the artificial gravity. Tony is thrown all across the place until his arm is jerked back because Nebula has gotten a hold of him. She pulls him to the crate she's clinging to and Tony smacks into it hard but manages to grab a hold of the net that keeps the box in place. He clings to it and squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to feel sick.  
"No pilot response. Activate emergency protocol." The tinny voice is barely distinguishable over the sound of loose things smacking into ship walls and the sound of rushing blood and panicked heartbeat in Tony's ears, but it's there. And it sounds like heaven and salvation even though the lurch that goes through the ship as the thrusters try to counter their endless somersault might just rip off the fingers he still claws into the freight security net.  
When they are still haphazardly tumbling around after what seems like forever, Tony begins to doubt he'll live through this whiplash until his construct has managed to stabilize the ship. He just contemplates losing the contents of his stomach after all, when finally (FINALLY!) the artificial gravity and internal dampeners win over the force of their movement and drop the both of them to the floor.  
Neither Tony nor Nebula get up. They just lie there, while their vestibular system tries to recalibrate their sense of balance. Tony stares at the ceiling, sick to his stomach and trembles running through muscles weak from clinging to the crate.  
"Is everything alright, Commander?" the tinny voice asks over the intercom.  
Tony swallows, tasting bile. The dampeners might work again, but the ship could still be tumbling through space, going who knows where, off course for who knows how much distance. They could be having a cracked hull, losing air, they could be dead in the water (dead in fucking space!) once they manage to stop. They could smack into a planet. They could be even farther from Earth…  
"No," Tony says. "HOUSTON we have a problem."  
And saying that is not even one percent of the fun he imagined it would be.  
"Indeed," is the answer he gets. "You have left your previous course and are still moving, Full stabilization will be archived in approximately 27 minutes."  
Tony groans. And drops his head back to the deck, abandoning the thought of getting up. Great, this is just _great_.  
"Did we sustain any damage?" Nebula asks. Unlike Tony, she does eventually sit up and might even stand up soon. At the moment, she seems to be checking herself for injuries while waiting for an answer.  
"Shrapnel has damaged solar panel unit five to sixteen. More damage has successfully been prevented by engagement of the shields."  
"We have shields?" Tony is impressed and concentrates on that rather than the pain flaring in his side. "Like, an energy shield? Is that standard?"  
"No," Nebula and HOUSTON reply at the same time.  
"The Explorer is a reconnaissance ship and as such has been fitted with a shield suited to repel dangerous, hostile or unknown objects in not yet scouted territory. According to the ship computer this particular shield has never been engaged before, nor has it been maintained. This might be why the shields engaged one point five seconds late, allowing damage to the solar panels," HOUSTON dutifully explains.  
"The previous owner didn't know the ship had a shield generator, he'd have never sold it so cheap if he did." Nebula staggers to her feet. "And what hit us?"  
She is met with silence. Nebula turns to Tony, unimpressed.  
"Oh, come on, I built us an AI from scratch, isn't that even a little impressive? God, you aliens depress me, acting like you're always ahead of me. Give him a moment, he only just hatched! And this is not how I wanted you two to meet. I wanted to present him to you with a nice introduction and then ask if there's some kind of alien internet I can connect him to, because contrary to what some people believe my AIs ain't omnipotent and need to gather knowledge before they can share it," Tony grouches.  
"According to the data accumulated by the ship before impact, you've been hit by a smooth criminal," HOUSTON throws in.  
Tony's head audibly thunks back onto the floor. "And just when I defended you... where the hell did you even get that reference? That song's not on my playlist..."  
"What reference, Commander?" And Tony can see how Nebula rolls her eyes at the title. She doesn't seem confused by HOUSTONS analysis though. Which means...  
"Wait, wait, what, does this mean you really mean we've been hit by a _smooth criminal_? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Maybe he did smack his head too hard after all.  
"It is the most accurate term I could find, commander. I had to reconstruct it from mentions of similar objects."  
"This is probably a translation error," Nebula draws her conclusion.  
"Translation error?" Tony finally struggles to his feet as well, grateful that nothing seems broken. Though his side felt a lot better before this whole ordeal.  
"We do not speak the same language, Stark."  
"But I can-" the metaphorical light bulb lights up in Tony's head. "It's like with Thor, right? You speak something that can be understood by all and understand me though I still speak English. That's why for you HOUSTON's ramble translates into something understandable because you hear what he means, not what he says... so what does he mean?"  
"A kind of missile. Made by Kree," Nebula summarizes for him.  
"Ah. So hitting us was an attack? Were they planning to enter out ship?" He mentally files away the language info. If he could just learn that translation trick sometime, that would be quite useful.  
"No entering, they meant to blow us out of existence."  
"Maybe I should repaint the ship after all…" Tony carefully admits.  
"They didn't find us by looks. Had they gotten close enough to admire your painting skills we would've seen them coming. No, out here you locate and recognize ships by their energy readings and communication signature. And they probably squeezed our data out of the port workers back on that planet. We need to check if our identifying features have been uploaded in a headhunter network and we need to change them. But before we do any of that we need to find out where we are and what's the ship's status." With that, she stalks off towards the ladder that leads out of the freight bay and up into the corridor towards the cockpit.  
Tony scrambles after her with a groan. Hopefully, wherever they are now, will bring something good.


	5. Grasping At Whatever Is There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I bet all of you already saw the Avengers 4 trailer. Seems like in the movie poor Tony is gonna be stuck on a less comfortable ride than the Catastrophe XI... Buuut that's not gonna stop me from writing this stuff ^^

Tony stares out of the big front glass pane of the Catastrophe's cockpit. If asked, he would describe the view as a washing machine filled with fireflies and then turned on. Lots of spinning lights do their best to hypnotize him as their ship performs barrel roll after barrel roll, distorting the view of stars and planets.

While Tony still stares, Nebula sets about actively countering the movement, taking the control over the ship's trusters from HOUSTON.

"If the ship's got shields it must also have a detection system. Why didn't we register the missiles sooner?" she asks, scrolling through the ship's statistics with one hand while the other hand holds on to the controls.

Tony thinks about it and comes to the conclusion that she's going to kill him soon. With a sheepish scratch at his neck, Tony offers, "Ahhhh… Might have something to do with me rebooting stuff to upload HOUSTON… ?"

Yes, from the way those eyes focus on him she would flay him. "You are the stupidest man I know, you could have killed us!" she yells.

"Space is big, I didn't think this would happen if we were offline for five secs… how high was the chance that they fired at us in that precise moment?! I was just trying to make things easier for us." Nope, not calming her at all.

"We could've hit a planet!"

"No, no that I actually made sure off! I checked that there was nothing ahead of us for the next couple of minutes. And in the future HOUSTON will even help us with that! Because that's what he is for: Helping outer space traveling oafs navigate!"

"Oafs?!"

"I learned that word from Thor. It means something like idiot, which apparently I am, so what could be more perfect than this?" A winning smile. Which pearls off of her like water on a lotus leave. One blue finger uncomfortably pokes into his reconstructed breastbone.

"I swear I will jettison you if you ever do something like this again!"

"Understood!" Tony hastily amends. "Now can we, you know, check up on all ship things and, like, find out where we are? Because I'm pretty sure that takes priority over you chewing me out...right?" he tries to direct her attention away from him, carefully wiggling his pointer finger to indicate the screens and controls behind her.

Her pointer finger, that feels like it might be knuckle deep in his chest by now, raises pressure for a moment in warning, then Nebula turns back to the instruments.

After a while, the nauseating view outside finally stabilizes and space looks back at them, endless and dark and clear as ever. Tony swallows, hoping they didn't go too far off course. Nebula just sighs in relief and stretches her arms.

"HOUSTON," she asks, eyes on their shield, which is still active and shows in bluish flickers racing around the ship.

"Copy, Lieutenant."

Tony precautionarily takes a few steps away from the seething woman. "He's choosing the titles on his own, just saying, we're still equal partners…"

_"HOUSTON."_

"Copy, Lieutenant."

An audible grinding of teeth, then: "SitRep."

"A day in May is coming up."

Tony groans and slaps his hand over his eyes. Nebula is testing his AI with a simple request and of course, HOUSTON has to embarrass him by failing spectacularly. Though...

Suddenly, it clicks. "You mean a Mayday... we're getting a Mayday?" he asks, confused.

"Yes, Commander"

"Who's sending an emergency call to us?" Tony wants to know.

"The signal seems to be directed to no one specific. You are simply close enough," HOUSTON tells them.

"Close enough…just where the hell are we now?" Tony asks.

"You have reached the Makaten System."

Nebula curses under her breath as Houston announces that. "We have been catapulted backward by a whole solar system!"

The thoughts in Tony's head are running amok. Back, they've been thrown back! His worst fear has come true, it'll be even more time until he knows...

"Commander, what do you wish to do about the Mayday?"

Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. Everything in Tony longs to fire up the engine and make up the miles they lost. Get back on course, get back to Earth. Never look back, just run home, crawl into their bed and fall asleep so he can wake up next to her in the morning with this nightmare over and done with.

What he does instead is ask: "Where are they hailing from?"

"Stark, we are not going to follow a random distress call! We have neither the time nor the resources to help anyone and we don't know if it's just a trap!"

"Yeah well, I know I'd like it if someone came for me when I call for help, and you know the whole do to others-..."

"We can't risk that!"

"Okay so maybe I don't know how things out here work, and all the aliens I ever met before this mess were Chitaury and Aesir and only the latter were friendly, but-"

"Commander, if the Aesir are counted as friendly, you might want to listen to this."

Tony and Nebula freeze in the beginnings of their yelling match when HOUSTON speaks up. There's the sound of static, then the scratchy record of a voice starts playing.

_"This is the Asgardian refugee vessel Statesman...We are under assault. I repeat, we are under assault. Engines are dead. Life support failing. Requesting aid from any vessel within range...Our crew is made up of Asgardian families, we have very few soldiers here. This is not a warcraft. I repeat, this is NOT a warcraft."_

"Oh fuck. Those are Thor's people! Okay, we have to go there. Maybe we cannot be effective help, but Thor helped my folks, so I'm going to at least try to help his folks. Plus!" he adds and holds up his pointer finger to make sure Nebula will listen to this, "they are very likely to have some sort of navigation equipment to get us back to Earth!"

"They are under assault Stark!"

"Yes, and we've got a shield. We should at least go take a look at the situation!"

Nebula ponders this for a while. "Very well, we will go take a look, it's in the right direction anyway... but we won't engage in any battle!"

"Right, let's go then!" Once they're there Tony can still try and get her to do more.  
  
"I can't see a space battle ahead. HOUSTON, is there a space battle ahead?" Tony asks when a while later there still seems to be nothing ahead of them but the dark of space and the light of stars. Maybe it's because he's expecting movie-like grand explosions and laser being fired everywhere but he can't even see marker lights or any of the other kinds of an eerie glow that alien ships have a tendency to emit.

"My readings suggest that the only thing ahead is debris."

And then the headlights of the Catastrophe hit the first part of the wreckage.

"Woa…"

Tony has a feeling this is not what should be said about what's outside their ship, but the eerie standstill of a massacre has short-circuited the processing unit of his brain. He is used to death and destruction in his immediate vicinity (sad as that is) but this… This is a new level.

This is men and women and children drifting among the wreckage that used to be their ship. Bodies not rotten and yet not whole, just strangely wrong after being exposed to the cold and nothingness of space for so long.

There is surprisingly few blood and a horrible lot of expressions frozen in terror.

And maybe that's why Tony's eyes immediately hone in on the one object in this mess that doesn't look like death and destruction but the quiet beauty of ice flowers creeping up a window pane. It's a desperate try to block out the horror and keep a clear head. So Tony stares at the shimmering white object, admires how it reflects the blueish touch of the Catastrophe's headlights. It's like a multidimensional snowflake, an ice star. A literal freeze frame of a body of water exploding in every direction.

Something rattles next to him and suddenly the lid of the convenient metal cup he left in the magnetic cup holder by his seat flips up, the water within rising up in a little bubble as if there was no artificial gravity aboard the Catastrophe XI. It wafts up and against the front pane, flattening against the glass as all of the water tries to get closer to the star of ice.

"Have you ever seen something like this before?" he asks Nebula, pointing at the wet patch. She doesn't immediately answer, opening her own cup and watching the water inside follow the example of Tony's.

"Strange. But I think I heard of it before… Back then they picked something like this from the void and a day later I was given-."

With a sudden motion, she fires up the ship's thrusters, aiming at the strange object.

"As much as I like having a good amount of ice, which translates to water, aboard, I don't think we should get any closer!" Tony objects. "This water attraction thingy might just scramble with the ship's water system…"

But they are already hovering in position, the Catastrophe's hatch opening up to take the ball of cold into her warm belly. Tony is immediately up and on his way to the freight bay, eagerly followed by the bubble of his and Nebula's water. (And if that isn't creepy…) He drops down the last of the ladder, skipping proper climbing and cursing himself for it when it's jarring his still tender side. And then he's standing right in front of their ominous new freight.

The water that has followed him touches one of the frozen spears pointing away from the main body of ice and immediately slides up to the core, becoming smaller on the way, part of it freezing on the thin icicle, turning it thicker. But nothing else follows, the walls don't rip open, pipes don't burst out to give up their contents to the water magnet just sitting there, balanced precariously on a few of its icicles. Fascinated, Tony reaches out, carefully touching the ice lance that had taken his water. It feels just like normal ice.

And it begins to melt.

He stares as the spikes thaw first, then the main body, becoming more and more transparent rather than blueish-white, showing what is hidden at its core. Tony swallows.

"Hey Nebula," because she has no doubt followed him, even if he didn't hear her steps, "do you know that feeling when you see something supposedly new but there is something so familiar about it that you should know what you're seeing after all, but at the same time it's not familiar enough for you to actually pinpoint the exact thing you recognize in it?"

As often Nebula doesn't grace him with an answer so he prattles on while he prepares to catch the body that will drop once the ice has fully given it up. "Maybe it's just that they're blue like you, but- ompf." He strains, the slight body is heavier than expected.

"Goddammit, what's he made from?" And it is male, or so Tony assumes because so far all aliens sporting what humans deem a male physique were and Tony has yet to meet an exception.

"A little he- oh _shit._ " He almost drops his load. Because his brain has finally lured out the hints hiding in the back of his mind and Tony knows exactly what is familiar about this guy.   
That face. Exchange the blue for a pale human pink, remove the raised lines and paint on a sneer.

Loki.

_Loki._

Tony is holding the maniac that threw him out a window. And for whatever reason he's blue. Maybe that's the Asgardian version of frostbite? Or is it their true color? Loki's true color? Thor said he was adopted…

Tony shakes his head to clear it. Okay, what now? What to do with Kneel-before-me-mortal-scum!-Loki?

"Put him down somewhere. He will probably act aggressive and defensive if he wakes up now." Yes, that makes sense. Good thing Nebula keeps her cool when Tony doesn't.

"Right," Tony agrees with her and drags the limp body up to the crates stacked to his right. With considerable effort, he manages to hoist the ragdoll of a man up and lays him out on his back, on top of the crates. Then he steps back, looking at his work. Loki remains unconscious. Or dead. It's hard to tell, the body's coldness might just be a result of the ice enclosure.

Tony hesitates, then reaches for Loki's neck. Pressing two fingers into cool skin he searches for a pulse. Flinching back when he actually finds one, sluggish though it is. But it speeds up under his touch, just as the blue is receding, the pale color that Tony associates with a human shade of skin spreading from where his fingertips are pressed into the rapidly warming flesh. There is a sharp intake of breath and suddenly Tony is sitting flat on his ass at the far end of the bay, blasted away by a faintly green force field. He blinks, confused. And where Tony is still an undignified bunch of unsorted limbs, Nebula has already climbed back to her feet, slowly stalking forward to the panting man on the crates.

Loki has not moved yet, only gulps down air like a drowning man a couple more times before falling completely still. Not unconscious though, those eyes are still open, staring unseeingly at the ceiling. Only to blink once and snap his gaze to the side, honing in on Nebula like a hawk.

Tony expects threats. Or confused questions about where, why and when. He does not expect Loki to laugh.

And it's a horrible sound because it's a laugh Tony knows well, the laugh of someone who can't believe they ever thought things might end up well for once.

"I wonder, will the void ever not spit me out at the feet of Thanos' children?" Loki asks as his laughter quietens. "Hello Nebula, long time no see."

"You two know each other?" Tony blurts, ever angry at the universe for connecting so many things without ever letting him know about it. Loki's eyes slowly roll to the left to focus on him, Nebula keeps quiet, obviously waiting for how this will play out.

"Tony Stark, Iron Man. Did you decide to switch sides to survive? Let me tell you, death would've been the better decision."

"Nope, I'm still anti-Thanos. So's she." He points a thumb in Nebula's general direction.

Loki snorts. "She? I find that hard to believe" His scorching gaze travels back to her. "Nebula, always so eager to please her master, obeying all orders and begging for every scrap of attention and praise. A good dog who believes themselves a valued daughter. I don't see you snapping your leash."

"It was you who frayed the leash," Nebula hisses, and both Tony and Loki raise a dark eyebrow. "You showed Gamora it was possible to escape him, you fanned the spark in her to a flame, taught her that what looks like cowering down in fear can be the disguise for getting ready to leap at a throat. She watched you take Thanos' orders and pretend to follow them up to the point where he still believes you didn't fail him on purpose but through stupidity! And all the while you made sure the human planet knows what's out there and you gave the Asir reason to capture you and take you out of his reach. And Gamora did the same. She went out to fulfill his orders, turned his plan against him and never came back. And I watched her and did it, too!"

She is panting by now, looking angry because she is angry at being embarrassed about her confession. Loki for his part is ignoring her in favor of finally sitting up.

"What a sweet little story," he finally says and leans his head from side to side before rolling his shoulders, apparently trying to get rid of a crick in the neck. Accomplishing that as well, he turns to face Nebula. "The only problem I see is that Gamora did indeed have a spark to be fanned, but you… if you had a spark you wouldn't have been so dedicated to your job. You watched and helped as Thanos and The Other took me apart and tried to rebuild me to their liking. Gamora looked away, tried not to see, already doubted. But you… you held me down. So, how about an eye for an eye?" A knife appears in his pale hand and he swings his legs off the crate, begins to saunter towards her. "I really want to know if I can do at least half of what was done to me to you before you crumble."

And Tony expects Nebula to get ready for a fight, because judging by Loki's sinister smile this is what he's out for, and Nebula is not one to avoid a fight from what Tony has seen. He gets ready to intervene, even though he has no idea how his little human self will get the overpowered aliens to stand down.

But Nebula doesn't get ready to fight, she yells "I didn't have fun!" In the heartbreakingly desperate voice of someone who has finally learned they are a normal human (alien) being and can act like it, feelings and all, and only want others to finally see that change and no longer take them for the monster they pretended to be. "I just-" and she cuts it off, hanging her head, giving up the hope for understanding.

"You just what?" Loki asks, cocking his head to the side, apparently morbidly curious as to what could have made Nebula offer him what was obviously a rather painful kind of hospitality.   
And now he has Nebula ready for a fight, the anger at her embarrassment finally boiling up enough to make her shift into a fighting stance, snapping, "It doesn't matter anymore, it won't ever happen anyway!"

Loki flicks his knife from the right to the left hand, one eyebrow raised. "Now I'm curious," he says and attacks before Tony can even blink.

Nebula focuses on blocking the knife, too upset to see that this was Loki's intention. He drops the knife in favor of grabbing the arm meant to block his move, right hand coming up to Nebula's head. His palm touches her forehead and Nebula goes rigid. Loki frowns. Tony is about to do jump into the fray to intervene in all this, when the Norse god steps back again, a wide grin splitting his face.

It is false, and cold, and doesn't reach his eyes.

"You were hoping to finally gain a sibling that would care about you, more than the rest of Thanos's dogs ever did… How _cute_!" he seems to feast on the horror on her face as he reveals her secret. Steepling his fingers in front of his chest he continues, grin still firmly in place. "Unfortunately for you, you invested in the worst possible brother there is." The grin drops, and he turns his head towards Tony. "Speaking of brothers, did you find Thor?"

"Nope," Tony says, taking the chance to distract Loki from his more murderous ideas. "Banner crashed back on Earth, quite literally. He couldn't say much before Thanos's minions busted our party as well. But I met a couple people who met Thor. Apparently, he was on the way to some dwarf planet, and with that, I mean a planet inhabited by dwarfs, not just a small planet, whose name is Nid-something."

"Nidavellir," Loki says, eyebrows rising.

"Yes, that place. And those dudes knew Gamora as well. Seems like I'm the only one out here who doesn't know everyone else. Anyway, I'm guessing their info was sound." Tony shrugs.

"Good. This means Thor is still fighting somewhere out there." And Loki turns back to Nebula, obviously contemplating about what to do with her. Nebula is glowering at him, still distrustful and mightily pissed off. Tony uses their momentarily stands-till to edge his way between them, hands up in hopes to appear calming.

"Okay. We're all in the same boat - spaceship - here. I know that the idea to forgive and forget sounds lame, and I'm not asking you to do so. But could we try to at least not kill each other until we got a hang on our current situation? Because you see," he turns to Loki, " a couple angry Kree just blew us across space and now we're even further from Earth. Which is where we're going, if we can, which I really, really hope." Tonny swallows, trying not to work himself up as the situation really sinks into his brain. He's in unknown territory, with one rather hostile alien and one other alien who might just be killed by that rather hostile alien. He has no idea how to navigate home, even with HOUSTON's help. This might just escalate into something even worse.

"Anyway," and he tries to sound like the commander HOUSTON made him, "You can either behave yourself and peacefully come along to the next planet where we can drop you off - or I'll jettison you right back out into space where you can deep freeze yourself until the next ship picks you up."

"How about I come along to Midgard," Loki says.

"Eeehhh…"

Loki raises his hands, mirroring Tony's attempt at looking harmless and calming. "I'm not planning to try and rule it, I am just very sure Thor will end up there somehow. And I really want to see his face when he sees I'm still not dead."

"That's your only reason?!" Nebula sounds skeptic. Tony can't blame her.

Loki just shrugs. "Asgard is dead. The shift in the universe's energy tells me, that Thanos has won this war. So, what else is left for me to strive for?" He then turns and proceeds towards the ladder that will eventually lead towards the Catastrophe's cockpit. It takes a moment for Tony to unfreeze and follow up.

"Hey, hey wait, what are you doing!?" he yells as he scrambles up the ladder and jogs after the other. He can see Nebula following from the corner of his eyes, her face wearing the expression of someone who'll kill you if you ever mention what all had been said about her in the freight bay.

They find Loki standing between the pilot and copilot seats, hands clasped behind his back and face impassive as he watches corpses and ship parts drift past the Catastrophe.

"You have trouble traveling back to Midgard?" he asks.

"Yeah," Tony says shoulder's drooping. "No maps and navigation data."

"The Grandmaster of Saakar liked to import exotic things if they didn't eventually drop on Sakaar on their own. The freight ship we stole from him would have found its way to Midgard. Maybe you can save its data."

Tony feels a surge of hope bubbling up, but it is quickly quelled when he looks out at the remains of a massacre still floating around them. Finding the one piece of hardware they need in all of this material seems nearly impossible. Not to mention the chances of it still being intact.

"Well, chances that the Kree would make us end up right here with you weren't that high, either. But here we are. Maybe we get lucky once again?" he muses aloud.

"There's nothing we can do but try," says Nebula.

"Would you like me to calculate the chances?" HOUSTON asks.

"No need," Tony decides. "I'm gonna try it anyway."

Because grasping for straws is still better than grasping for nothing.  
  
  
  


 

 


	6. A Wreck Is A Place One Could Find Treasures At

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! One of my New Year's resolutions is to write more. I'll start with updating this little story here...

The Catastrophe XI slowly drifts through the remains of the Statesman. Tony swallows when yet another corpse gently bumps against their shield and then drifts off to where the lights of the Catastrophe don't reach. He remembers sitting through that awful Titanic movie with Pepper, remembers her laugh as he ranted about how taking off their life-vests and pushing them underneath the door would've given the thing enough buoyancy to support both Jack and Rose. And he remembers that scene when all the screams have fallen silent and the lifeboats go back to search for survivors. How those small, white, only half filled boats drift through a sea of corpses, the seaman's flashlight lighting up frozen faces.

Now he knows what they must have felt back then because he can feel it right now. Can feel mute horror creep up his spine, then curl around his neck and constrict it, leaving that lump he just attempted to swallow stuck in his throat. Can feel every hair on his body rise as he waits for one of those bodies to twitch, because maybe… maybe that child is not yet beyond salvation, maybe that woman is still alive, maybe that tough looking guy over there, maybe he at least did make it…

A hand on his shoulder makes him aware he was getting up from his seat, trying to get up to the glass pane and take a closer look at the dead warrior. He sits back down, head falling back to look at Loki. The god is standing between their seats, eerily quiet and expressionless.

"Stop it Stark. They were dead long before the ship was blown to pieces. Thanos's minions made very very sure of that." It is all he says aloud but Tony hears the echo of the unspoken "You cannot help them" anyway.

"How did you and Thor get out of there alive?" he asks, aware it might be an insensitive question that sounds a lot like an accusation, but unable to convince his mouth to keep shut. Luckily Loki just cocks his head to the side, looking like he's contemplating where to best start that explanation.

"Saving Thor was the easy part. Thanos likes to kill half of a whole. Half of Odin's sons is one Odinson. So making sure he left Thor alone cost me nothing but a broken neck and crushed windpipe." He grins and absentmindedly rubs a hand up and down the slender column that supports his head.

"I'm guessing the hard part was you surviving that", Tony says. He feels like he should freak out a little more. Then, he remembers all the crazy stuff he's seen up until now and decides that Loki surviving his apparent death wasn't the craziest thing to happen yet.

Loki shrugs, hand still resting against his neck. "Thanos would have killed me anyway. When I oh so spectacularly failed the invasion of your planet I cost him the infinity gem he trusted me to use to gain another one for him. So the only question was _how_ would he do it? I wouldn't survive anything brought onto me by the gems. So I gambled on making him angry enough to want to kill me with his own bare hands and, to save my brain, preferably while looking me in the eyes to watch my life fade away. He wasn't easily angered, but his need to teach me a lesson worked all the same..."

"He would never have let go of your body unless he felt your heart had stopped beating." What Tony actually hears in Nebula's observation is the question if Loki is lying or if he truly died and came back to life. Loki seems to hear the same. Looking mildly impressed, he grins, showing far too many teeth and creeping Tony out. That guy has far too much fun with mind games. But then Loki's grin falls and his hand drops from his neck. The god stares at the appendage as if it was something strange rather than a part of him.

"The Jotnar live on a world of ice. Sometimes, the coldness there is too much for even them to handle. And so, they freeze up and remain frozen, with their heart barely ever beating, if at all. Then, when the climate becomes warmer, they will wake and simply move on."

"Like that frog!" Tony rudely but excitedly interrupts. Loki raises a quizzical eyebrow.

"There are animals on Earth who can do that," Tony continues. "That kind of frog just freezes for all of winter and when summer comes around it thaws and continues living as if nothing ever happened! Or tardigrades, those are the real motherfuckers! Cryobiosis, anoxybiosis, you name it, they rock it!" And he's never been much into biology but Maya Hansen's papers held mentionings of many kinds of resistance and regrowth and he went through them all to cure Pepper of Extremis.

Loki nods, processing that info, then lifts a finger that asks Tony to keep listening. "The truly interesting thing, as I discovered during my first stint with death, is that the ice does not necessarily have to come first. It can also come later, a protective shell, created by oneself through inner magic while the body is… down for maintenance."

"You go into standby mode to conserve the energy you'd normally need for functioning and then push it into healing. Basically a healing coma in an ice cocoon," Tony deduces.

"In a way," Loki agrees.

"It involves far more magic than logic, I guess?"

"Having taken back the Casket of Ancient Winters from the Vault does help."

"Casket of what?"

"An old magical artifact that used to be the heart of the Jotun homeworld. The Jotnar never died easily, but they died even less easily before Odin took that thing away from them."

"Ah. Nope, nope I don't like magic. Can't explain that stuff. I'm just gonna stick with my theory that you're related to tardigrades," Tony decides.

"Whatever floats your boat, Stark." Loki grins like a shark. Tony groans. He's pretty damn sure that Loki will create a lot of deliberately confusing magical bullshit in the future just to annoy Tony's scientific self.

They turn back to staring out at the massacre. Tony belatedly realizes that Loki just quietly admitted to being an entirely different species than Thor. A little revelation that temporarily stuns him. He remembers Thor saying that Loki was adopted. He'd thought that meant Loki came from just another Asgardian family. But apparently not. Huh. Interesting. Might explain the smurf look on Loki when they picked him up.

He glances at the other man from the corner of his eyes. Loki has finally sat down in one of the two free chairs and looks pointedly indifferent. His crossed arms are at odds with the wide open legs, leaving him with an altogether confusing body-language. He raises a questioning eyebrow when he catches Tony watching him.

"You should probably go take a nap, you still look like a corpse," Tony tells him. And judging from Loki's glare that was the wrong thing to point out, even though it's true. Loki's skin is ashen, his cheeks hollow and his eyes rimmed by circles dark enough to almost put a panda bear to shame. Only Loki is no cute little panda. If anything, he's a zombie polar bear. He certainly snarls like one.

Tony shrugs and turns back around. "Just sayin'," he mumbles.

The cockpit soon feels clogged with thick silence again. Tony has taken to focusing on the pieces of ship rather than the corpses, but it doesn't help all that much. God, he wishes for Loki's apparent ability to just shut all of this out on an emotional level and look at it like any other task. The other's calmness freaks him out as much as it calms him, too. Nebula as well seems to be fine with that professional detachment she has going on. Tony tries to borrow a page from her book.

"That's the transmitter for the distress call," Nebula suddenly says, pointing at a solid metal box that is drifting ahead of them.

"It's still active?" Loki asks.

"Yeah, we followed the call here," Tony tells him.

The metal box ripples and then folds into itself. Tony and Nebula stare at the mangled metal clump.

"No need to attract any vultures," Loki says when the both of them turn to him. And he's right. There won't be proper burials for the Asgardians, but they can at least try to keep the looters away. It's just a little creepy to see that Loki can make things implode. But judging by Loki's carefully closed off face now is not the time to ask about that.

* * *

"Promising object detected."

Two hours of horror show cruising later, HOUSTON speaks into the silence in the cockpit. Tony's eyes feel dried up and his mind and soul are tired from looking at that sinister view for so long. A couple times he had considered giving up the search, but now his stiff and aching body finally moves out of his seat and he stands to take a closer look at the readings of the scanner.

"See this?" Nebula points at a string of data that proclaims to sense all the stuff a hard drive is made from, then points at a tattered piece of tech hovering outside, between the pale corpses of a girl and an older woman.

Tony stares at what might be his ticket home. He just needs some more luck, just enough for a couple of maps to be salvageable and they can fill up the ship with all they need and head home!

Loki rouses from where he had eventually curled up in one of the back seats, too wary and cautious to truly sleep, but definitely resting up until now. "I won't go out there to grab it," he says.

Tony thinks about it. They could just open the hatch and have the Catastrophe encompass the hard drive the way they did with Loki's ice star, but chances are high they will pick up the corpses as well. He really doesn't want those corpses on board. He doesn't want to pick the piece they need from between them and then discard them back into space. Logically, whoever that person used to be shouldn't care about their flesh shell anymore, but still.

On the other hand, this might be his fastest ticket home. And Tony would do everything to see Pepper again.

(If she's still there. Don't think about that!)

Nebula rises from her seat before Tony can finalize his decision. "Open the hatch and pick it up, I'm going to take care of whatever ends up in the cargo hold," she instructs and leaves the cockpit.

"'Kay." And for once Tony gratefully does as he is told.

Nebula calls for them over the intercom a while later and Tony quickly leaves the cockpit. They truly need to tidy the ship up, he absentmindedly notices when he steps on stuff on his walk down to the freight hold. Everything loose is no longer where it belongs, but strewn about the ship instead. He stops when he finall reaches the ladder down to the freight bay and swallows. Loki slinking up behind him makes him move on. Jumping down the last few rungs, he looks around. There is nothing down here but Nebula and their provision crates. Tony is grateful for that.

He is then presented with something that seems to be barely more than scrap metal. Swallowing once more, he takes it from Nebula. It's heavier than he thinks and he holds it in his arms like an oversized baby. Tony stares down at the chipped blue paint of the casing. This is his biggest hope for a fast journey home. Tunnel vision sets in as his brain catalogs all the pieces and their damage level.

"Well, I'm gonna go see what I can get from it…" he absentmindedly tells the others and carries this deformed Holy Grail to the server room.

He plugs it in, but there is no reaction. That doesn't mean anything though.

"I'm gonna get you to work," he tells the thing and tries just that.

Nebula wakes him three days later. He must have passed out from exhaustion, he thinks, as he blinks awake. His mouth feels fuzzy and the broken hard drive is on the table in front of him.

He has gained nothing from it.

**Nothing.**

For a while, he buries his head in his hands, trying not to scream and smash things up in his frustration. Finally, he slams his hands down on the table, rattling everything on it. It's the most of an outburst he will allow himself. Demolishing the ship won't help him. Quite the opposite actually.

(The Kree will suffer all that pent-up rage once they get around to raiding them. Tony is already sorry for it but knows that won't change things)

And goddammit does everything _hurt_ when he gets up from his chair. He's been thrown around while clinging to a cargo security net, then sat in the copilot chair for hours, only to come down here and hunch over the hard drive for days. He wants a massage. A hot bath and a massage and Pepper. Damn he wants Pepper, wants to hug her and hold her and tell her he loves her and be held by her in turn and hear her voice and...

He shuts those thoughts down. He still has work to do or he'll never get there. Face grim, he walks (hobbles, dammit!) out of the server room and makes his way up to the next deck.

The fact that Tony didn't crow his triumph through the whole ship until now has probably told Nebula enough about the state of the hard drive. She didn't ask about it when she woke him up, didn't rub it in that he obviously couldn't get anything from it. Nebula just moves on. Sure, getting back to Earth, and quickly at that, isn't as much of a priority to her as it is to Tony… But Tony won't complain about the whys so long as she keeps dragging him forward with her.

"HOUSTON, what planet did Nebby say we're close to?" he asks into the silence.

"Kermita, Commander. I do not have any further information. We will be landing in approximately an hour. The Lieutenant asks you to shower and change clothes until then. Food was also recommended."

"Will do," Tony says with a roll of his eyes. "Maybe we can get you an internet connection or something on Kermit World so you'll have some more info for the future."

"I would appreciate that."

Tony hums and goes for that shower.

The shower stall is small and silent apart from the sound of the harsh spray. He misses that rain shower thing Pepper made him install. (Misses sharing that gentle spray with her, warm and close together, kissing water off her skin and hearing her simultaneously laugh at his antics and lecture him for making her run late.) He leans against the cool steel wall and for a while he pretends it's only water running down his face. Tony has faced so much, has fought so much without ever giving up, but this… this is something he can't defeat with just his IQ and some scrap metal. This isn't a person or a machine, this is _distance_. Miles upon miles upon billions of miles that he has to go. They cannot be defeated or hacked or changed, they are simply **there** and he will have to cross them one way or another. And those ways are limited. Limited by fucking physics and his own damn human brain, because he hasn't come that far yet, he's no magic alien with rainbow bridges and-...

His head snaps up. He hastily turns off the water, stumbles out of the shower and barely remembers to dry off and pull some pants on.

"HOUSTON, where's Loki? I need to pick his brain!"

His stomach growls because he hasn't eaten in a while, but that's okay. Tony storms off to count six impossible things before breakfast.


	7. Impossible Things Before Breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for dumping all this pseudo techno-babble dialogue on you. I probably have a reason for doing that. Who knows...  
> Also, what's up with me and Alice in Wonderland references lately?  
> Anyway, next chapter, here we go!

He finds Loki and Nebula in the galley, sitting opposite of each other at the oval table and glaring at the other in mistrust as they eat from their respective can of food. Normally, Tony would make some smart ass comment at their unhappy faces, but as it is he ignores Nebula sliding a can and fork over to him so he would sit down and eat in favor of crowding right into Loki's space.

"Your rainbow bridge, how does it work?"

Loki frowns. "Rainbow-?"

"That gay frost thing!"

"You mean the Bifrost?"

"Yeah whatever its orientation is, doesn't matter, how does it work?!"

Loki's eyebrows rise and he puts a hand against Tony's chest to decisively push him out of his personal space. Tony obediently steps back. (It's not like he's got a chance, apparently, even a beanpole of a god has an impressive amount of strength, dammit)

"Did you not say you dislike magic?" the mage asks, eyebrows climbing even higher.

"I just remembered someone once said magic is just science we don't yet understand. And I love science so I'll try to understand!" Tony declares.

"I highly doubt that you would understand the mechanics of that construction," Loki says.

"See that's the thing, I'm smart! I might not understand _now_ , because my brain didn't go down that path before, but I'm pretty sure I'll get it if you just push me in the right direction!" Tony tells him.

"Very well." Loki puts down his food.

Discussing physics/magic with aliens, Tony learns, is complicated, headache-inducing and incredibly difficult.

He loves it.

His brain hasn't run this hot in a while and he revels in the challenge thrown at him. It's even more of a challenge since whatever creepy alien phenomenon is responsible for translating the different languages between the three of them apparently has an issue translating the Bifrost explanation. It's not only that Loki doesn't know what a "Bernoulli-equation" is supposed to be just like Tony has no clue what the "Einar-formula" is unless they write down the math, to which the other replies "Ahhhh, you mean the Insert-other-name-phenomenon!". Loki and Nebula can also say the exact same thing, (according to them at least they do, but Tony isn't a hundred percent sure if there isn't a little bit of trolling involved) but Tony hears two different sentences that are only vaguely the same.

"The Allspeak does not translate literally, it translates by meaning," Loki muses. "If I speak about a dog you will get the meaning of the sentence because you know what a dog is. But if you don't know what I mean, then how can the meaning be properly translated?"

"Maybe you should stick to the pure math? That seems to work best," Nebula assesses, and points at the screen the both of them have already scribbled on.

"Okay," Tony says. Because so far pure numbers seem to be the only concept that lines up. Loki's understanding of how things work is completely different from Tony's and that's not going to change unless they find a way of thinking that syncs up. "Sounds like a good plan." He erases the screen and starts jotting down new stuff. "So on some really long flight to Germany, I once took Jane Foster's papers on the Einstein-Rosen-bridge with me as reading material..."

"Thor's Jane Foster?"

"Yes, that one. Figured her stuff must be good, 'specially since she experienced that bridge in person at some point. Anyway, I don't remember all that much because once we landed I got distracted by… stuff for the next days, but maybe we can use what I remember as a base..."

He draws up all the equations still ghosting around his brain.

Nebula and Loki stare at them for a while, silent. The two seem to have forgotten about their disputes for the moment, and that's awesome because Tony likes it when people can get together over science despite everything. He can understand people like that and can interact with them without stepping on toes as much as he usually does. Their perception of priorities is closer to his than other peoples'.

He also loves how the bifrost-magic does actually boil down to a sort of science that can be explained, even if some of those explanations seem unfathomable. While Tony believes there are a lot of things not yet understood by the majority of living beings, if not by none of them, he does not believe in anything being unexplainable.

Finally, Loki stands, takes the stylus from Tony and starts to push things around the screen and scribble between Tony's lines. And the more is added and erased, the more Tony begins to understand.

"Woa. I don't even know how some of this does make sense, according to Earth-physics it shouldn't, but it _does_. Woa." He knows he's gaping. He has dabbled in teleportation and wormhole stuff a couple of times for shits and giggles, has read other peoples' papers on stuff like that, but he knows he still would've taken ages to get here on his own, even if his focus was truly on it rather than on suits and Stark Industries and Avengers. It's baffling how obvious the solution looks once he's presented with it. Just three hours of physics talking with aliens and he has understood a phenomenon that he would've taken a lifetime or two to get the hang of by himself. He wonders if the sci-fi authors who first started describing aliens as benevolent and giving creatures, that came to revolutionize human tech, had maybe once made an experience like this and never been taken for real.

"So that's how it works…" he mumbles to himself, eyes still glued to the numbers and various other characters that have been explained to him. Any scan of his brain right now would probably light up like a Christmas tree. This is amazing, and his mind is still reeling, but he _understands_. The only question left is… "But how do you trigger the bridge into opening?"

"Asgard typically relied on one of two methods," Loki shrugs. "First and foremost the Bifrost gate mechanism. It drew energy from the power of the realm itself. Second, Odin's spear Gungnir or similarly powerful objects forged by the dwarves. Those relics rely on the magic forged into them to tap into the dark energy. You need not be a master sorcerer to wield them, the ability to connect to magic alone is enough. Still, despite even idiots being probably able to handle that does not mean idiots should handle it. Dark energy is not to mess with."

"You don't happen to have such an object, do you?" Tony asks though he expects the answer that comes.

"Would I be asking you for a ride then? No, I have never been trusted with something so powerful. I learned to find the pathways between the realms that exist by nature, to travel by them until maybe one day I would be granted a token to open my own bridges with. Now, it's highly unlikely I'll ever receive one. I'd wager Thanos went to the dwarves for a gauntlet and didn't leave Nidavellir in one piece." Loki says it all nonchalantly but Tony can see it grates on him.

"And there's nothing _we_ could build to trigger a bridge?" That would be so, so nice. Wonderful. Awesome.

But Tony's hope is squashed by a shake of Loki's head. He grabs a chair to drop on and practically deflates. This is the second time a quicker way home has been dangled in front of his nose only to turn out unachievable and he knows if he keeps dwelling on this he's going to explode from sheer frustration. He thinks about a change of topic.

"It would be a safer bet to try and build a warp drive for this ship," Loki tells him just then.

Now if that isn't a _nice_ change of topic... Tony perks up. Nebula scoffs.

"A warp drive would only leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere. They are good for covering short distances but suck at long distance. We'd end up dead in space because we'd run out of power," the cyborg comments.

"You people can build a jumper drive to catapult a ship across two galaxies but you can't construct a warp drive that covers the same distance? But, if we're talking about what I think we're talking about, the warp drive should be much easier to archive?" Tony wonders.

Nebula shakes her head. "It's a power problem. The difference is simply that the jumper drive can reach its destination before running out of energy. It needs one single boost to rip through reality, then drops through the rift and that's it. It doesn't matter if opening the rift costs you all your energy because once you did it you have immediately reached your destination, and that is usually a place where you can recharge. With a warp drive, the ship would cross distances by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it. A continuous process that needs energy all the way long. It creates its own bubble of space-time to allow the ship to accelerate to faster than light, which would normally be impossible because a particle with subluminal velocity would normally need infinite energy to accelerate to the speed of light. So a warp drive reduces the energy intake from infinite to something that can be handled, but not for such a long distance. We'd run out of steam and lose our space-time bubble halfway there, leaving us to float about without any energy to even sustain the life support systems."

"Thanos' ship didn't seem to do much recharging to me, it just dropped in on Earth and was gone again within the same day. You sure there are no power sources strong enough to handle this shit?" Tony protests.

"The ability to build jumper drives that don't need weeks to recharge themselves died with Titan and has yet to be invented again. Same goes for warp drive tech. A Warp drive for long range most likely existed at one point but has been lost and needs to be reinvented. Civilizations rise and fall and take their secrets with them. It might not look like that to you but just because there is trade among most planets doesn't mean the whole galaxy is one big, happy community that shares all secrets. If the Skrull or Kree built a long-range Warp they wouldn't share for sure. If the Nova Corp had built one they would keep it to themselves as well, as a strategic advantage. We are on a route with no major planet on it. We are unlikely to find what you seek, even if it does exist somewhere."

"She is right," Loki grudgingly admits. "Thanos has been killing long before he had the stones. He saw it as salvation but never once stopped to see how much more than lives was lost on the way. Knowledge and skills that only a few possessed died with those few. Numerous wars among the different species and associations did not help the matter. But, there is always those who invent anew…" And this time Loki leans into Tony's space, flicking the glowing blue object in the middle of his chest with pale fingers.

"The nanites?" Tony asks, confused and reflexively putting a protective hand across his chest. It's not like taking away the nanite container would kill him, but old habits die hard.

Loki frowns. "This is not the same thing as when last we met…" he tries to prod the blue light again and Tony swats him away.

"Yeah, last time I still had the-..." His eyes widen. "You mean an _arc reactor_ could power a warp drive?!"

"It powered my portal-device. We cannot recreate that one without the Space Stone, but a warp drive, perhaps…?"

"So a full-size reactor… space wise, we could fit it. Question is, would the engine fit as well?" Tony looks questioningly at Nebula.

"Maybe," she says. "But I am not a shipbuilder. And we should be thinking about getting a map first, anyway. Because without one we won't be going anywhere, no matter how fancy our power unit is. We should also consider that procuring an engine, building your reactor and implanting all of that into the ship might just take longer than the travel time we'd save."

Tony ponders this. The Catastrophe XI is able to make the way to Earth. Slowly, but surely. And as much as he longs to see Pepper again, find out if she's okay, he's not sure if scrambling up this perfectly fine ship for just _a chance_ to reach Earth a hand full of weeks earlier is the smart move. Nebula is right, they might run into trouble with getting the engine and building the reactor, it could ultimately cost them more time than they would save. Get them stuck out here for years. Maybe even kill them if the Kree had any say in this.

A couple of years ago he would've tried anyway. Cocky and self-assured. Tony used to be all for experimenting and going the crazy way, but…

He's learned from his mistakes. There have been too many pyrrhic tasting victories and lost fights recently for him to believe that the risks are always worth it, anymore. He has tidied up the fallout of Afghanistan and Obie, he has tidied up the fallout of the Palladium mess and of Vanko. He has tidied up the fallout of Killian's Mandarin and Extremis. And he has tidied up the biggest mess of it all or at least tried to. Ultron, Sokovia, the Accords, and all the shit that followed suit in an insane snowball effect that ended with him on his back and Rogers' shield coming down on his chest again and again.

But it's not his own trouble that makes him hesitate, not the injuries and PTSD and that stomach-turning guilty feeling that drives him up the walls sometimes with the need to finally do something completely good and right and benefitting to all without bad consequences.

No, it's the way all of this affects the people he loves.

Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, they have all been dragged into his mess so often already. (And Peter has been dragged in one time too many already, but he refuses to let his thoughts wander there...) And still they all fear for him, too. He knows how much the thought that one day Tony won't come home from his Ironman escapades scares Pepper. So he's not going to do this to her. Tony is selfish and narcissistic and feels like he often doesn't care as much about others as he probably should. But Pepper still loves him and he's going to make sure she won't ever regret not leaving him to find someone less of a mess. Because Pepper doesn't deserve any regrets, Pepper deserves everything good in life because she is good.

And that's why Tony will stop and think for once. Not the hectic, solution focused, all over the place and consequences ignoring kind of thinking that is on a rampage in his head all the time, but the consequences calculating sort of thinking that requires to actually _pause_. The kind of thinking that won't ever have Pepper crying over his empty grave. The kind of thinking spurred by the knowledge that him seeing Pepper again as soon as possible is not as important as her getting to see him again at all. Because her happiness is more important than his.

Because Tony loves Pepper too.

So he nods and grabs the can of food previously offered to him. "Okay, we'll concentrate on finding a map for now."

He opens it and pokes at the food with his fork. "If a safe golden opportunity presents itself I'll grab on to it," he adds after swallowing a bite, "but yeah, right now going for that warp drive would be chasing white rabbits. And no sane person would want to go down the hole without a wonderland map."

"No sane person," Loki assesses the situation, "but I'd say we're all mad here."

Tony pauses in his chewing to ask: "Did you actually get that reference?"

"None of us have the context to ever get your references and you know it!" Nebula complains above whatever Loki might have answered.

"I'll show you the books and movies once we made it to Earth," Tony promises.

Just as he promises Pepper that he'll get there.

Slowly, but surely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm a passenger on the "magic is science!"-train of thought. You gotta live with that ;)


	8. No Kermit On Kermita

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was aiming to finish this story before the release of the movie. I don't think I'll manage that T-T

The planet they are orbiting is mostly ocean blue with one big spot of green and yellow on the side lit by its sun. It looks entirely too much like Earth. Something that is probably homesickness stings uncomfortably in Tony's chest and he glares at the patches of light that mark civilization on the dark side of the planet. Extraterrestrial life is a lot less cool to look at when it looks so much like the planet you're trying to return to.

Kermita is a lot smaller than Earth, smaller even than the Moon. Tony knows that, but there is no scale next to a planet and unless he actively calculates how much bigger Earth would look at this distance his brain just keeps tricking him into believing they are the same size. Even the different placement of the continents can be overlooked in nostalgia. He blinks, shakes his head and concentrates on what Nebula tells them about Kermita.

Apparently, it is mostly a resort for the rich and famous. The two "continents" together aren't much bigger than perhaps France or Germany. There are two big cities, the rest of the land consists of the private grounds of the mansion owners and a part that is used for agriculture so not everything has to be imported. So basically, the planet consists of an ocean and two big party resorts islands. It's the kind of place where Tony would've gone for a nice little holiday, were he an alien and still in his Merchant of Death set of mind. Lots of pool parties and drinks and girls and tight security services keeping out the paparazzi who're trying to get some juicy shots of the famous. Nebula hopes maybe one of the rich and extravagant here have the unusual hobby of stalking the Milkyway.

Tony expects for the Catastrophe XI to be redirected to one of the supply docks where the old ship won't mar the pretty picture all the luxury ships on the private docks make. But no one complains when they moor between sleek sports ships and private yachts. There is a welcoming committee, but it doesn't look like it's the actual harbor patrol. Too much of a rag-tag company and no uniforms, just a flame-shaped patch on each chest marks them as a group. (None of them looks like a frog either, how disappointing.)

"Who are you and what do you want?" is the impolite, weapon-heavy greetings they receive once they step off the ship.

"We're just some harmless crazy people on a private space exploration party and here because we need to refuel and because we could use some supplies," Tony tells them with a wide grin and lifts his hands to imply peaceful intentions. Nebula too raises her hands, even though she looks pissed as hell and, after a moment and some eye rolling, Loki half-heartedly follows their example. Apparently, Tony's companions are more annoyed than concerned by the weapons trained on them. Probably because they are a lot better at ass kicking without weapons than Tony is at ass-kicking without his suit. And a lot less squishy and vulnerable, too. Humans truly pulled the short straw in that domain.

"You sure _look_ like a crazy bunch," some purplish guy says and the rest of the group laughs.

"May I inquire as to what makes us so apparently unwelcome here? Perhaps we can find a solution to whatever problem you have with us?" Loki asks and smiles the polite smile of a diplomat.

"No problem with you personally," the apparent leader, some patchily shaved dude in an old leather jacket, says. "It's just, we took this fancy little planet for ourselves when all the fancy people here became ashes in the wind. Some nice little home base for us Ravagers. And now we gotta make sure everyone knows it's ours."

"Alright, we now know it's yours. And we're not going to do anything about it because we don't really care who's calling the shots here so long as no actual shots hit us. Unless they're the drink kind of shots, I could use some of those…" Tony muses. The Ravagers laugh again.

"You're up for a drink, you're flying an old whip painted with flames… I like you," the leading dude says. "You're also only three and that whip's got no weapons worth mentioning, I doubt you'll be trouble. Guess so long as you pay for mooring you can stay. But don't try shit or we're gonna give you shit!"

"Sounds like a deal," Tony declares.

Money is handed over and with that, all interest in them seems to dissolve. It is clear those people think there should be some sort of security and payment system in their harbor but have no real plans on how to go about it the right way.

"Wait," Nebula commands when the group calling themselves Ravagers is about to slink off. So far she has kept herself in the background but now decided on her move. The Ravagers stop to glare at her, skeptical and rather unhappy with her demanding tone of voice.

"What is it Missy, you like us?" one asks with a lecherous grin, a distinct hip movement, and some inelegant eyebrow wriggling.

"The only touch you'll ever receive from me is when I rip off your smelly balls!" Nebula snarls and all males on the scene shrink away from her in more or less subtle ways. There are some murmurs of "how does she know if his balls are smelly or not?" and similar questions, but she silences them all when she continues: "I want to know if Kraglin Obfonteri is on this planet and where I can find him if he is here!"

"Kraiglin Obfonteri and his pack are in the north of the city…" the leading guy slowly admits. "I thought you weren't here for something specific, just to fill up the ship…" He narrows his eyes, clearly suspicious.

"That was before I knew this planet was full of Ravagers. Now I want to talk to someone I know, is that so bad?" Nebula's words are clearly a challenge and Tony mentally face-palms. This started so nicely peaceful…

"I know you…" the Ravager says in sudden epiphany. "You are Nebula, Thanos daughter…"

"I used to be. Now, I am just Nebula." She squints back at the guy in equal disdain. The Ravagers around them are suddenly on high alert.

"Is that so… okay, Just-Nebula, we will take you to Kraiglin. In exchange, we want some answers on what happened to the universe. I'm sure it has something to do with your suddenly not Daddy…"

"Fine!" She growls after a moment of reigning in her temper. "Lead the way!"

They do. Tony throws a look at Loki, who keeps his face blank and doesn't show if he has any clue about what is going on here. But he does follow the group of Ravagers that walks ahead of them. A gaze to Nebula yields him the sort of look that says "I'll explain later, just play along for now." In the end, Tony follows along. Nebula said she knows someone here and maybe that contact would be useful. It's certainly better than always poking around in the metaphorical dark whenever they reach a planet.

The town looks like a kindergarten if the care workers were gone for a day. The Ravagers are running wild, enjoying all the bars and pools and other high-end entertainment without realizing that all those things won't be standing much longer if they keep going on without rules and maintenance. Someone just crashed one of the sleek little ships that double as cars into a building during a wild race and is already picking out another one to drive in. It's the kind of anarchy that happens when people are given all they ever wanted all at once and have no plan on how to deal with it, other than enjoying it until it breaks.

Tony wonders if people on Earth are on a similar rampage. If governments have broken down and people are going crazy. If they are running around like headless chickens, looting and trying to fill the emptiness left by the vanished people by taking all the fancy stuff they can get their hands on. If they have taken over empty mansions and relax in the private sauna they could only ever dream of before to forget that their friends aren't there anymore to share the experience.

Or are they frozen in grief, walking the streets like zombies, no plan, no goal, just trying to keep it together? Do they pretend nothing ever happened, do they carry on with their days as usual? Will there be wars over what's left, will someone try to size Earth as their own? Tony likes to think people would stick together and try to stay civil, try to help each other out, try to rebuild. But he knows humanity well enough to be unable to truly believe in that.

It doesn't matter anyway. Whatever the situation on Earth is, Pepper is smart. All his people are smart. If they survived the snap they will keep on surviving and make the best of the situation. Pepper saved Stark Industries from collapse after Tony's sudden decision to stop weapons manufacturing, surely she is at the front of organizing what's left of the world right now and doing a fabulous job of it, too. Yes, _that_ Tony can believe in.

"Kraiglin Obfonteri now leads what's left of Yondu Udonta's faction of the Ravagers." Nebula whispers to them like it should mean something to them, now that the Ravagers are shortly distracted by hollering at the ongoing race through the streets. Her voice barely carries over the _wooooosh_ of the ships shooting past them. "The average Ravager isn't exactly smart. I've dealt with those idiots enough to know that if there is a map to your Milkyway somewhere on this planet they will probably be using the storage unit as a door stopper. Kraiglin is one of their leaders because he's one of the few among these vermin equipped with an actual brain. He might know where to find what we seek and if he doesn't he'll try to find it. Ravagers do a lot so long as we offer them money."

"I thought you had barely any money left," Loki throws in.

"We will have to offer something else then unless you have some royal riches to spare?" Nebula hisses at him.

Loki daintily crosses his arms in front of his chest. "There is nothing left of the riches of Asgard, but I might have… collected some credit cards before I left Sakaar and transferred the money to my own little bank account..." A flick of a wrist and he's holding an alien credit card that has certainly not been there before. It's vanished again just as quickly.

Tony blinks, thinks "fucking magic!" and then says: "And here I was trying not to bankrupt random people on my way home…"

"Oh, the Grandmaster's cohorts won't need the money anymore. The Sakaarans will have lynched them to take control of the planet once the Grandmaster fell," Loki says all too pleasantly and then resumes walking, ignoring Tony's incredulous stare. All race ships have shot past their little group by now and the Ravagers are glaring at them in suspicion, waiting for Tony and the other two to follow them.

They are lead into a mansion not unlike the one Tony owned in Malibu. It sits on the side of a hill rather than a cliff but is no less beautiful. If one ignores the graffiti all over the place. The daubs mostly consist of the flame shape people wear on their chest, but also show phrases like "KRAIGLIN'S CASTLE" and "BEWARE THE ARROW!".

Inside, they are lead towards an impressive office furnished in dark woods. Tony hums the theme song of The Godfather under his breath as they wait, flanked by a couple dude's with guns, for that Kraiglin guy. He receives confused glances from everyone but Nebula, who's had some more time to get used to his "weird human habits" than the rest of them.

The actual meeting is rather boring. Kraiglin appears, with a red (Plastic?) Mohawk on his head and an arrow hovering next to him. (Tony congratulates himself for understanding the warning at the door.) That's about the only ominous thing Tony can find in the situation. The guy is definitely more reasonable than the other Ravagers and remembers Nebula from "that time I was dragged into fighting a sentient planet", which is something Tony will ask about later because it sounds like an interesting story. But until then Tony unhappily sits through the recap of the Thanos disaster that Nebula delivers to the Ravagers as was promised by the docks. He fiddles with his sleeves, trying to ignore how it still twists his gut that they couldn't stop the purple asshole. The Ravagers for their part listen to the story with what is probably an unusual amount of quiet for them and file the information away with a grim "Well, we got our own planet out of it," but not much more of a reaction. They seem to be the kind of people that get over losses quickly. Not necessarily because they don't care, but because they know dwelling on it won't do them any good either. Tony wishes he could just take a leaf from their book of pragmatism.

Kraiglin agrees to help them search for a map. Turns out Loki does not only have money, he can also haggle like hell in order to keep as much of it as possible. It's amusing to watch him talk circles around the Ravagers until they agree to help search for a fraction of their original price.

By the time the three of them have restocked the ship, the Ravagers have come to the conclusion that, if there's a map on this planet, there's only one place it could be at.

At the outskirts of the city lies a villa in a nice little park of a garden. It belonged to a woman who made billions in the production of navigation systems and who apparently had a private collection of all maps ever handled by her systems. That is the good part of the news.

The bad part is that the house is mostly rubble now, buried under the remains of a freight ship that just about entered Kirmita's atmosphere when Thanos snapped. The sudden lack of pilot left it to crash uncontrolled, smothering the house and spilling luxury kitchen tools all over the impact crater.

Tony swallows. This burned out mess looks about as promising as the wreck of the Statesman. And that wreck was a disappointment. If he starts on this and it's another disappointment…

"Let's start," Nebula next to him says.

And Tony decides he's going to try because he knows the one time he doesn't he'll have missed his chance. That's just how life goes.

They start digging. Based on the floor plan someone organized from somewhere they try to guess where the chance of finding the collection room is highest. Shipwreck parts and ceiling pieces are lifted away by a gigantic maintenance drone a crazily laughing guy steers about the place with the enthusiasm of someone who uses heavy machinery for the first time and goes a little crazy from the power. Tony is itching to take the controls away from him, partly for their own safety, partly because he wants to play around with it himself. The urge to play vanishes very suddenly once the room they hope to find their treasure in is freed from the biggest chunks of debris.

Heart thumping like a jackhammer, Tony slides down the edges of the hole. His feet hit the bottom and he can already see the outlines of alien computer-chips in the mix of shattered showcase glass and dust.

This is it.

He picks up the first one, cleans it and hands it to Nebula, who connects it to a small wire she pulled out of her robotic wrist. She reads out the chip, shakes her head after a moment, throws it where it will mark the beginning of a pile. Loki hands her the next chip. It joins the other one, making the pile official.

Fifty-one chips on the pile and the few Ravagers who decided to stick around and help are bored and leave. Tony asks about "that time I was dragged into fighting a sentient planet" and Nebula roughly tells the story as they shift through the debris.

Ninety-seven chips and they find the rotten corpse of someone who was in the house when the cargo ship came down. The maintenance drone is used to carry the body away to wherever the Ravagers will put it. The smell gives Tony a hard time keeping down the food he snacked on between chip seventy-two and seventy-three.

Onehundredandtwenty chips and Nebula perks up. Tony's heart skips a beat only to cramp up and stutter back into a normal rhythm when the chip joins the pile after all.

Twohundredandtwo chips and Loki finds a half-burned catalog of the collection. Tony can't read the script, the strange alien letters don't make any sense to him. He impatiently waits for Loki to read what is still readable of the burned pages. Nothing of it mentions anything even close to the Milkyway. He kicks a boulder in frustration but goes back to work.

The light is almost gone, the sun already halfway vanished behind the horizon, her reddish light reflecting off two hundred forty-five computer-chips cast on a pile.

Tony is sitting on the floor beside that pile, tired as hell and trying not to cry.

From joy, because two hundred forty-six will lead him home.

He carries the nondescript little chip back to the Catastrophe with a smile.

Suddenly, his world doesn't feel so hopeless anymore.


	9. L'appel du Vide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve come to the realization that I should probably clarify what kinds of space travel I'm working with in this fiction. I didn't want to bombard people with even more techno babble in the story itself, I always feel like it will bore everyone to death, so I guess some things that make sense in my head are left unclear to the reader.
> 
> 1\. Jumper drive  
> A jumper drive is supposed to make a spaceship (or any matter) go from one point in space to another point, which may be several light years away, in a single instant. It's akin to teleportation. Ship goes poof at one point and shows back up at another point. Usually instantaneously (I mentioned Thanos’ ship took two days for the jump from Earth to Titan. I assume that in order to make the ship more energy efficient (less recharge time) that ship uses hyperspace as a lead line for the jump, which takes a moment longer but less energy is used.) a jump drive is basically a crossbreed between a teleporter and a very very very advanced hyperdrive.
> 
> 2\. Warp drive  
> I did explain that one in the story. It wraps the ship into its own space time bubble to allow it to accelerate to faster than light without needing infinite energy to do so.
> 
> 3\. Hyperdrive  
> This is what the Catastrophe XI is equipped with. When activated, the hyperdrive shunts the starship into what appears to be another dimension, where it can cover vast distances in an amount of time greatly reduced from the time it would take in "real" space. Once it reaches the point in hyperspace that corresponds to its destination in real space, it re-emerges. Unlike the jumper drive the hyperdrive is dependent on access points to hyperspace. (Remember Guardians of the Galaxy 2 when they had to fly through that asteroid field to reach an access point so they can flee from the Sovereign fleet? I'm kind of assuming hyperdrive is the most common way of space travel in Andromeda Galaxy. Though I think they call the whole access point mess the Universal Neural Teleportation Network rather than Hyperspace.)   
> The reason why hyperdrive is slower than warp drive is because the ships and their passengers can't make use of hyperspace for an extended amount of time. (Again GotG 2, Rocket, Yondu and Kraiglin are all distorted because they overdo it by going from access point to access point in a far too quick succession, doing more hyperspace jumps than they should. "It ain't healthy for a mammalian body to hop more than 50 jumps at a time." - "I know that." - "We're about to do 700!") To avoid the ship breaking, or people dying, from the stress that going into hyperspace puts on them, they have to regularly drop out and go by propulsion for a while. (Any SGA fans will know the wraith had a similar problem as well and needed to drop out of hyperspace every once in a while so the hive ship could recover from the stress.) As a scouting ship constructed for long range travel the Catastrophe XI can take a lot more stress than standard ships, but inevitably she has to get a break, too. (If they could stay in hyperspace from Andromeda to Earth without a break they would essentially have a slow jumper drive ship that allows them to cover any distance in one go) So with a hyperdrive Tony and Co. can cover a good part of the distance faster than light, but have to stop and rely on slow travel in regular intervals. The warp drive would be a continuous faster than light travel without those breaks, hence it would be faster than the Warp drive in the long run. Within the space time bubble of the warp drive there is no stress on ship and crew.
> 
> 4\. Propulsion  
> That's what gets human rockets into space. It’s what all my made-up space ships use when they have to take a break from their more fancy engines, have to navigate slowly or in close quarters to something, or land on or take off from planets.
> 
> All this makes sense to me, I hope it makes sense to you as well. Corrections and/or questions are welcome. :)

The Catastrophe XI is cruising lazily among the stars. They glitter and twinkle at the demilitarized MK 107 Explorer, friendly and harmless as long as the ship doesn't get too close. Fortunately, the board-computer has just received a new map to avoid exactly that.

It would take a little more than an hour for the mass of new navigation data to be uploaded into the system and for HOUSTON to calculate their course from it. Tony would've happily spent that time bouncing in his seat, watching the progress bar crawl forwards, pressing his finger over the end of it to see if it moved at all and eventually moved past the digit. At this point, they have already lifted off Kermita and are off in the general direction of the Milkyway. The only reason they are in motion at all, even though the final course has yet to be set, is Tony's restlessness ever since they had finally come a step closer to going back to Earth. He's distinctly aware that it drives Nebula and Loki crazy. The latter had said something along the lines of "This is worse than Thor before a battle, it's called the _calm_ before the storm, not the big fidgetiness! Can't you sit still?!" and stalked off towards a different part of the ship. Tony had yelled "Don't say such ominous stuff, there's no storm coming, I'm waiting for something _good_ here!" after him, then went back to wringing his hands as he waits for HOUSTON to finish calculating because he really really _really_ wants to know how much longer he's going to be away from Earth. He's ended up on Titan only twenty-one days ago but it already feels like a decade. They also need to know their travel time to calculate food and fuel, the acquisition of which will be their next problem.

About five minutes later Nebula seems to snap as well, all riled up by Tony acting like something grand is going to happen any moment when it won't. He knows the feeling, he can't stand it either when people around him are all excited over nothing until he can't help but get excited over nothing as well, but that doesn't stop him from complaining when she _suggests_ he should go outside and use the time to finally fix solar panel unit five to sixteen, which were left unattended ever since the Kree's "Smooth Criminal" hit them.

Tony is actually looking forward to that. Fixing something always calms his nerves, and how often does he get to fix something as cool as a true, alien-made space ship? (In space!)

So he goes and grabs a spacesuit. Which consists of only a round disk that covers him in a thin sheen of _something_ that vaguely looks like bubble wrap but is in no way comparable to anything human-made. He adds the Iron Man helmet and other parts of the suit the nanites can still produce to the ensemble, simply because it leaves him less paranoid about his odds of survival with this flimsy alien barrier being the only thing protecting him from space. He can't even feel whatever is covering him! And he's _so_ going to take this thing apart and reproduce it once he gets home. For now, though, he hooks up to the safety line and climbs out of the airlock to go fix the solar panels.

He should've known that was a bad idea.

Because when he sits on the hull of the ship and looks up towards space, he freezes. The HUD flickers, showing data that Tony doesn't read. His heart speeds up, beats like crazy against a rib cage that suddenly feels heavy with an arc reactor again. Dark shadows crawl in his vision, a giant ship blacks out the stars, he can't breathe, can't reach Pepper. He's floating dead in space, no power to his thrusters. Then, a sharp pull downward and Tony knows he's falling back through the portal, is grateful he won't die out here alone but hopes he'll fall unconscious before he hits the streets of New York and his suit becomes his iron coffin.

He hits his chest, the metal retreats. He doesn't want to end encased like this, a useless man in a malfunctioning tin can…

Then he's caught, struggles for air as a female voice (Natasha? She was _there_ but not _here_ , what…?) asks what's wrong. And Tony can't tell her, can only gasp as his heart hammers on in his chest and why is she asking anyway, didn't she see his fall?

More questions, an alarm is blaring somewhere, finally Loki's voice speaks "He's seen it, haven't you, Stark?" And Tony thinks he should fight, Loki's come to take over Earth, Tony needs to get up and fight! But a hand on his chest effortlessly pushes him back to the ground and his own hands flail up to dislodge it, he needs to protect the arc reactor, it's the only thing between him and Loki, the thing that keeps him alive. But it's gone, he can't feel it there, did Loki take it away, did Loki take his mind away too?

Bright eyes are fixed on Tony's dark ones, black pupils framed by blue look like the portal in the sky and suddenly Tony is back _there_. He is shooting up with a nuke on his back, right through the portal that marks the sky above New York, and it's dark as a black hole. Dark and cold. It feels like death. He _sees_ death, the Chitaury army in front of him, the closing portal at his back. His systems are failing and he's gonna die. He's falling. Falling, falling, falling, to his death.

But that's not right, this already happened just seconds ago, didn't it? How can it happen again?

His heart lurches in his chest and someone's grabbing him by the shoulders.

"You've seen the emptiness and death in the void, but don't let the feeling of wanting to let go win," Loki says. "It's just your own fear and cowardice taking over. Don't let it. Remember that as long as you think clearly you can find a solution. Space is not out to kill you, no matter how much the abyss seems to stare back at you it has no interest in your life. It's deadly by nature but not malevolent. Think of a clever way to survive and it will let you. There is no need for fear. The call of the void is an illusion, Stark."

The call of the void, he'd heard that before… It's something Pepper's said. He'd been at the construction site of Stark Tower, stood at the very top and looked down over the edge, feeling that weird pull to _just jump_.

"L'appel du vide," Pepper had said then and Tony, in all the eloquence of a distracted man, had just blurted a "What?"

"L'appel du vide. That's what they call that phenomenon. The call of the void. An intrusive thought or urge pertaining to self-destructive behavior, that may occur during everyday activities. The feeling that tells you to jump when you're staring down heights that would surely kill you."

The feeling that made him let go of the Catastrophe XI when the panic attack set in, the feeling that demanded he jump right into his doom because he cannot avoid it anyway and this way maybe his end would at least be quick… He'd be drifting around space until he had no air anymore if it wasn't for the lifeline hooked to his belt.

Tony blinks out of his stupor. He's not in New York fighting Chitauries with a nuke. He's in a spaceship far from Earth, but alive. He's still _here_ , staring at Loki who's looking back at him with that knowing gaze. And God, does he _know_ , Tony can see his own madness tenfold in those eyes. But no fear. Loki is not afraid even though he clearly fell through the void as well.

The mage grins widely. "There you are... Now get back up, we have bigger problems to deal with!" He takes his hand off Tony's chest and stands, then strides off towards the cockpit.

Tony, glad no big deal is being made of this, scrambles up to follow, wrapping himself in composure on the way. There is some sort of silent alarm still going on, bright red lights flashing.

This can't be good, red lights are never a good thing.

Nebula is at the controls, the Catastrophe is no longer cruising. They are blasting forward with all that their propulsion engine has to offer.

"How much further until the next access point?!" She asks.

"Ninety-five klicks," HOUSTON answers.

"Dammit!"

"What's going on?!" Tony demands to know as he throws himself into his seat next to hers. Loki the ass didn't explain anything to him at all after pulling him out of that flashback. The mage is sitting in the back seat now, aware he isn't of much use here and enjoying the show instead. A bowl of popcorn wouldn't look amiss on his lap.

"Kree. Apparently there's a bounty on our head and apparently, some of the Ravagers blew the whistle on us to get it." So that big ass ship covering the stars wasn't only his flashback.

"A bounty?" Tony asks, trying to push down the memory.

"10000 Credits on you, Commander," HOUSTON supplies. He did get some "internet-access" on Kermita after all.

"Is that a lot?"

"It's not important right now! We got a sufficient warning of their approach this time, but we still only just barely managed to get the shields up because you were still outside! I tried to call you back in so we could run, but you wouldn't answer. You were drifting like an idiot and we had to pull you back down by the lifeline! We missed the closest access point because of that and now we have to hold out until the next one because we can't fight that battlecruiser on our heels. Even if this piece of scrap metal wasn't stripped of its weaponry before whatever army threw it out we wouldn't have much of a chance!" Nebula complains.

As if on cue, the ship shudders and their shield flares brightly. "Shield capacity at ninety percent," HOUSTON's tinny voice tells them. "Eighty," the AI amends after a complete salve of something bad hits them.

"Shit they are catching up!"

"We are not gonna make it, are we?" Loki asks from the back.

"We're gonna try!" Nebula declares and the ship vibrates in protest when she pushes it to its limits.

"Shield capacity sixty percent, twenty clicks until access point."

The ship lurches and Tony almost hits his head on the dashboard.

"Shield capacity fifty percent, twenty clicks until access point."

"Are we getting slower?!" he asks and taps at the screen proclaiming their speed.

"Shield capacity forty percent, twenty clicks until access point."

Nebula curses colorfully and hits the dashboard. "They got us. Fucking tractor-beam!"

"Okay, what's the plan, can we get out of this?" Tony asks, watching the bright light of the beam that pulls them back creep up the edges of the front pane with trepidation.

"No," is the deflating answer.

"Well. Shit."

Nebula kills the engines, the straining ship practically groans in relieve at not having to fight the beam anymore. "I suggest we capitulate for now and see if we can find a way out later on." She crosses her arms in front of her chest, clearly pouting at having lost. "If we fight back right now they will just shoot us to pieces."

A minute later there is the _thunk_ of the Catastrophe settling on the floor in the bigger ship's bay. They let down the ramp because they don't fancy the Kree damaging their ship to get in, not when they might just need it to escape later on. And Tony is pretty sure they will manage that. They will do that thing people do in the movies: Sneak out of their little prison cell, sneak back into their ship, blast apart the enemy's hangar doors and fly away.

Never mind the Catastrophe isn't equipped to blast anything apart.

But Tony is going to figure this out. He's got a ship that can take him home and he's gonna make sure he'll get away with that ship.

The _tap tap_ of boots hitting the gangway and Tony expects the Kree to come around the corner. What he doesn't expect is the gas grenade that has him drop like a sack of potatoes. Next thing he knows Nebula is down as well and Loki falls on top of the both of them as he attempts to catch her.

Then, Tony is out like a light.


	10. Not Made Of Iron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo... two, maybe three more chapters to go. And this rather long one. Hope you have fun reading^^

It's the cave all over again. The interior is more sci-fi, his captors are more alien and it's heat instead of water, but it's still _the same_. It's getting yelled at and refusing to answer the questions, sometimes because he doesn't want to answer but mostly because he simply has no answer. It's breathing hard between pain and more pain. It's feverishly trying to think of a way out of this hell hole.

A literal hell hole. Because that's where they threw Tony in. The Kree have learned from his last escape. There is no lock to pick, no system to override. All that's needed to keep Tony in place are walls, too smooth to climb, too high to jump, too far apart to brace against, too hard to even chip. He's down here in this perfectly round hole, just him and his brain that has nothing to work with.

He's clawing at the walls anyway. Because they turn up the temperature to unbearable degrees. Hence the hell in hell hole.

Tony has heard of heat as torture method before, has heard of that thing where people are locked into a metal elephant and have a fire pit lit underneath it and all that other disgustingly creative stuff. He thought having to wear a suit during a weapons presentation in the desert was the closest he'd ever get to being fried alive. He was mistaken.

They almost accidentally kill him. Apparently the Kree and most other aliens don't keel over from heat exhaustion as quickly as humans do. Not that Tony has the energy to ponder this. His thoughts are swimming, everything hurts and he's never been so sick to his stomach before. Puking doesn't help, especially when there's nothing left to puke and giving up what little there was only dehydrates you further. Not that Tony can ponder that either. He's not even sure anymore his name is Tony. His brain seems to be shortly before exploding, everything just _blurs_ and all he wants is to **get away**. Doesn't matter where, just away from this unbearable heat.

Eventually, mercifully, he passes out.

He snaps back to wakefulness when he is doused with water and for the first time since Afghanistan, that sensation is a blessing. They fix him up the way people who don't actually know how to fix up a human do, discussing how next time they need to be more careful or they kill him before they get any info. Tony doesn't care, all his muddled thoughts revolve around is downing as much of the offered water as possible. It's a bad idea that only leads to him puking once more and his disgruntled captors force him to drink more slowly once he's done hacking and breathes properly again.

He's dumped into a hole once more and for a moment he panics, sluggishly and blindly trying to force his exhausted, unresponsive body to find a way out. Then, he realizes this hole is wonderfully cool and the ceiling high above shows a different assortment of pipes. He curls up with his back to the wall, still sweating and shaking. Flinches violently when after a few minutes another body is dropped into this hole with a lot less decorum than Tony was.

Tony has actually been lowered down, dangling in the loveless grip of a metal claw and actually dropping for only the last one and a half meter. Loki, who was apparently deemed a lot less fragile, ends up being kicked over the edge of the hole to fall all the way down and smacks into the ground next to Tony, limp as a ragdoll. He's blue and... steaming? Vaporizing water, he's trying and failing to ice over. He also doesn't move, his eyes are closed and somewhere in Tony's brain, a little voice shrieks about freeing an unconscious person's airways and arranging them in the recovery position.

But his whole world lurches when he tries to move, drowning out that voice. His crawling over to Loki ends with his arms giving out and him unceremoniously plopping down on his stomach. The voice starts shrieking again when Loki convulses, actually choking and not able to do much about it. Tony once again tries to get up and do something but again his world starts spinning and he doesn't succeed in much more than ending up sprawled halfway across Loki's chest.

There is another _thump_ and hands reach out to shove Tony away and turn Loki on his side. While Loki coughs out all the vomit that was stuck in his throat the Kree sent down here to make sure none of the prisoners die before having been useful grabs Tony and props him up so he sits upright with his back against the wall. Loki is shoved into the same position once he's no longer choking. The mage doesn't fight being manhandled, seemingly even more out of it than Tony is. Then, Nebula is lowered down. She, much like Tony and Loki, looks and smells like something the cat puked on the carpet but is a little fitter. She manages to hit the Kree still down here with them when he reluctantly frees her from the metal claw, which was apparently used on her more for restriction rather than to not break her during the fall into the hole. A hard hit with a baton to the midsection has her fold and wheeze.

"You will pay for that tomorrow," the Kree tells her and unceremoniously drops her down to sit on Tony's other side before grabbing the claw and being pulled out of the hole. The moment he is gone, gas rises from the thumb wide hole in the middle of the floor.

It doesn't knock them out this time. Tony simply feels his body go numb. Maybe another gas, maybe a watered down version of the stuff that dropped them when the Catastrophe was entered. Doesn't matter, all Tony can think about is that finally, the various aches in his body vanish.

He drifts in and out of sleep for a while.

At one point they are given more water.

He still cannot move his body but after what feels like hours his head starts to clear. Or at least Tony has the urge to take stock of the situation and that's what clear-headed people do in such a situation, right? So Tony glances to his side and checks his companions in his peripheral vision, not able to turn his head to get a good look. Loki is no longer blue but appears to still be in as crappy a condition as Tony. Tony would have expected the self-proclaimed God to deal with this a lot better. Or at least as well as Nebula, who seems to be the best off among the three of them. Not that she is a gleaming picture of health, but still.

Anyway, taking stock of the situation...

The three of them are sitting with their backs to the wall, slack and slouching like a bunch of puppets with their strings cut. Tony is in the middle of that uncomfortable sandwich of heavy aliens. Which is actually quite nice because feeling the movement of their breathing against his sides does a significantly good job of calming him down. It tells him he's (not alone among corpses) slowly getting back the ability to feel stuff, even though still none of his limbs deign to move at his command. He's not looking forward to all the pain and the too-empty-to-puke-but-still-wanting-to-puke-feeling that will be radiating from his stomach, but all of that is better than having no control whatsoever over his body. Plus, chances they can get out of here rise with the ability to move.

"I should change my superhero-name," Tony says when he can finally feel his tongue again. Because this situation just calls for gallows humor. Gallows humor distracts from pain, gets the brain going and, most importantly: If they can still joke, then the situation isn't serious enough to worry. "Iron Man to Irony Man or something. Because this is fucking irony. Here I was thinking that maybe we could just raid some Kree for the food and fuel we need to get to Earth, but here we are: The Kree got us, not the other way round. They got us nicely trapped. No locks to pick or tech to override… just this goddamn hole we can't climb out of!" It feels and sounds like he's talking with his mouth full of yogurt.

"I'm so glad to see you have regained the ability to speak,' Loki next to him deadpans. The bastard's royal ass pronunciation is already clearer than Tony's, even though his voice is barely more than a croak. Apparently, he just kept quiet until now because he decided he preferred resting over talking.

"Can any of you move?" Tony asks, just this shy of hopeful. Because if Loki can already talk this well even if he looks like crap…

He receives a no from the other two.

Well, at least they are all together again. That alone should make escape easier. He refrains from asking how they are, the question is redundant. They look like they feel at least as much like shit as he does.

"If they don't douse us with more gas I should be able to move again in about an hour if my recovery rate continues as it did so far," Nebula offers.

"Rest up then, maybe we can make use of that…" Loki says thoughtfully. He doesn't offer any plan or his own estimations about his recovery time, just eventually closes his eyes and seems to doze off. In lieu of a better option, Tony follows his example. Maybe if he stops thinking so hard an idea will come to him. Like shower thoughts and all the other genius thoughts that just pop up when he isn't even trying. His body is certainly glad for the rest.

He wakes when Nebula next to him does a little fish-out-of-water-wriggle, which jostles Tony until he's listing heavily in Loki's direction. "About five minutes and I should be able to move," the cyborg asses.

Loki too performs what looks like an epileptic seizure, jostling Tony right back into sitting semi-upright. He huffs in mild indignation while Loki declares "Give it a minute or two and I should've worked through this as well." He _does_ sound a lot better than he did before.

"How about your robotic parts, do they move?" Tony asks Nebula while he tries to get a hold of his own limbs. In the beginning, Nebula had been quite uncomfortable with Tony being all casual and curious about her machine parts. By now she seems to appreciate even his occasionally dumb jokes about them. She probably finally understood Tony doesn't think any less of her for not being fully flesh.

"They're connected to my nervous system and the gas seems to have attacked just that. No more input than from the real limbs." Her robot hand spasms helplessly when she tries again anyway. "How about you?"

"Still an unmovable sack of flour," Tony admits.

Loki and Nebula just sigh.

"So, any escape plans?" Tony asks after a while of uncomfortable silence.

Loki's head lolls to the side in a more or less controlled attempt to turn towards them. "Depends. Nebula, how much do you weight?"

" _What_?!"

"You don't ask a lady that, Lokes!"

"Pray tell how else am I to estimate how high I can throw her?" Loki snaps.

"You want to throw me?" Oddly enough Nebula sounds like the idea has merit.

Tony looks up at the opening of their prison. Maybe this idea does indeed have merit. He's surrounded by aliens, what might be an impossible idea for human standards might just be a good idea for them. "How high can you jump?" he asks, still skeptical.

"With this level of gravity… four to five meters if I can pull myself up…" Nebula calculates.

Tony has to admit he's impressed. No wonder those two think this is a legitimate escape plan, because: "Judging by the force he applied to throw me out my window, I'm guessing Snow-white here should be more than able to give you the boost needed to cover the remaining five meters, right?" He lets his eyes roll into the other direction to get a look at Loki.

"I was considering apologizing for the defenestration, but your habit of calling me strange names changed my mind," Loki tells him.

"That a yes or a no on the throwing thing?"

"I would not have suggested it if I didn't think we'd be capable of doing it."

"Right," Tony rolls his eyes at Loki's haughty tone, but he's not all that annoyed. He pokes enough fun at slow thinking people himself, he can take getting snarked at. And it's not like he can't forgive his recently overcooked brain for lagging a little right now. It also seems like they actually have an escape starting point now. Not a plan, but, unlike freaky alien strength, improvisation isn't new to Tony.

"So, feel free to start Mission E-for-escape whenever you two feel ready for it. Just please remember to take along little human me here!" He finally quips.

It takes another twenty minutes until Loki and Nebula stagger to their feet like newborn foals, all uncoordinated limbs and swaying about until everything has been sorted out.

"Does any of you have something I could weaponize should someone be waiting up there?" Nebula finally asks, looking up as if she's contemplating what's waiting for her outside of the hole.

Loki flicks his wrists, holding out Nebula's own blades to her. She stares, he grins widely. "You didn't think I was really trying to catch you when you dropped due to the gas? I just thought it would be a good idea to store these away for later." He offers the blades, handle up, and she angrily snatches them away and shoves them back into her belt.

"Why didn't you already stab the lot of them?" she complains.

"I woke up in a hole hot as Muspelheim and discovered that _Frost_ Giants don't do all that well when exposed to _heat_ for an extended period of time. Excuse me for not having the energy to stab them when they came to transfer me to this hole!" Loki is obviously pissed, but he still interlaces his fingers in front of him, offering her a leg up.

"If this works I'm gonna be truly impressed," Tony offers. Mostly to interrupt them and discourage their little squabble from turning into a real fight. Nebula huffs and puts her foot into Loki's hands. She slaps her hands onto his shoulders with more force than strictly necessary and the both of them brace themselves for their crazy escape maneuver.

"Let's hope you aren't too heavy," Loki says with a grin. Then he moves, surges up from his slightly crouched position so quickly Tony only blinks and there is already the sound of Nebula's body hitting something. He looks up to find she has gripped the edges of the hole and is slowly pulling herself up. Then, she vanishes over the edge and is gone.

"You should really stop annoying her all the time," Tony says conversationally when they still haven't heard anything from her after a couple minutes. "She might just leave us here…"

"But riling her up is so much fun," Loki protests. "Once, while you were holed up in the server room for days, I took all the screws out of the pilot chair. It fell apart when she sat on it. It was _glorious_!"

"How are you even still alive?" Tony wonders, though he can't stop himself from snickering at the mental image.

"I'm hard to kill?" Loki suggests with a shrug.

"I decided you were still useful!" comes Nebula's voice from above them. "Though I might just change my mind!"

"If you kill me, you have no one to carry Stark for you," Loki quickly bargains.

"You're lucky then," she snarls. The next moment the claw comes down. Loki pulls Tony into the middle of the floor so it can grab him, then steps on top of it much as the Kree did. With a low whirring sound, the claw pulls the both of them up.

"The claw, it moves! I have been chosen!" Tony proclaims if only to distract himself from the lurch in his stomach. Doesn't matter if Nebula and Loki stare at him like he's crazy, the recent events have greatly reduced his ability to stomach strange movements. Finally, he's placed on the ground and he's glad he can at least move his head by now and keep it off the floor.

"They are so fragile, aren't they," Loki says, looking down at Tony's prone form.

"One thing we can agree on," Nebula, well, _agrees_. "Pick him up, we need to get a move on before they come for us and find us gone."

Loki throws Tony over his shoulder like the sack of flour Tony proclaimed himself to be not too long ago. They start walking somewhere, passing two Kree that have been stabbed to death. Those two were probably their guard. Judging from the game set on the table they didn't pay much attention to their job, not thinking their prisoners would be able to get out of that hole. The grand hall itself looks like most alien stuff Tony has seen so far: Big, imposing and darkish, like out of a mainstream dystopic sci-fi movie.

It's still better to look at than Loki's butt and legs, even if it gives Tony a crick in the neck.

"We will never, under no circumstances, ever talk to anyone about me having to be carried like this!" Tony demands while Loki stops walking because Nebula is doing…. Something. Tony can't see it from his current position. "I mean it, we will forget about this!"

"Shhhh!" Loki makes, but he sounds too amused for Tony's liking. Despite that, Tony keeps any further comments to himself because there is a sound that can only be a heavy door being opened by some sort of mechanics.

They quietly make their way down less grand corridors, squeezing into doorways and other places every once in a while to avoid being seen. The feeling and movability in Tony's arms and torso ist (FINALLY!) back by now and he taps Loki's back to let him know.

"Legs?" Loki quietly questions.

"Not yet," Tony grumpily admits.

"Hands will be enough for now," Nebula whispers. They have stopped moving again. "Loki will sit you down in front of a computer in a few seconds. Try to find a way out of this place, preferably a way that includes our ship. We keep the Kree away from you."

"Will do."

They storm into what appears to be a control center. Tony hasn't much time to look around, nor is he interested in his surroundings. The muscles in his arms and fingers are tired and cramping but he forces them to move, quickly typing away on the keyboard as soon as Loki dumps him in a chair. It's weird to trust a cyborg he doesn't know for all that long and an ex-enemy he knows even less with keeping the flight going on behind his back away from him, but only for a second. Then, tunnel vision sets in and Tony is fully focused on the computer system he's going through.

Base, this is a base on some planet, it hopefully doesn't have that awful tractor beam the ship that captured them had. Hangars, hangars, mooring list… there, scheduled to be taken apart for her shield. The Catastrophe isn't all that far away, the hall with the damn torture holes and the hangars are on the same level of this Kree post. "Found our ship!" He calls towards the other two while simultaneously picking out and remembering the best route there.

He unlocks all doors on their way and jams every other passage on base. While he's at it, he plants as many bugs in the computer codes as he can, until the fight behind him dies out. When he has scrambled the whole thing up and everything in the room has gone quiet, he staggers to his feet. Everything hurts or has that horrible pins and needles feeling to it, but all seems to be in working order and that's the only thing that counts. Nebula and Loki are waiting for him by the door. When he reaches them, Loki slaps his hand to Tony's chest, leaving behind the nanite container when he pulls away. Tony's eyebrows rise.

"You damn son of a bitch, you took that thing when you talked me out of the panic attack, didn't you?"

"I was curious, its power source reminds me of the Tesseract. But I didn't think you'd let me take a look, so…" Loki shrugs absolutely unapologetically.

'You could at least have given it back a lot sooner!"

"When you still weren't able to stop someone from taking it away again?"

Tony raises an accusing pointer finger, but Nebula interrupts before he can say anything.

"Can you two fight that out later, I don't fancy running into yet another bunch of Kree," she demands.

"You don't? I rather enjoy dealing out payback," Loki says and turns to pick up a fallen Kree's weapon, weighing it to get a feel for it.

"So do I, but I'd enjoy finally getting some food and sleep even more," Nebula says, already brandishing a weapon. "And a shower "

"So, revenge, then food, then sleep. And a shower somewhere in between. Sounds good."

The helmet closes, the HUD goes online and the repulsor gloves on Tony's hands whirr to live. Those are currently the most useful parts of the suit that his few nanites can produce. He leads the way into the corridor. "Let's do this!"

Tony is tired and unsteady. But adrenaline surges have always been rather effective in remedying that problem. And it certainly helps that they don't meet many opponents, Tony's meddling with their systems keeps many locked up wherever they are, and therefore away from the corridor the tree of them are running through.

When they finally reach the hangar, they are all panting and sweating. Tony feels like vomiting again but forces himself to ignore that feeling. He also furiously ignores various muscles trying to cramp.

The Kree in the hangar don't attack. They are weaponless and in different clothes, probably just mechanics. They flee the scene, leaving Tony, Nebula, and Loki to lean against the support beams of a hydraulic hoist to catch their breath. Their ship has already been strapped into that same hydraulic hoist, ready to be taken apart and plundered for all she has to offer, but not yet touched, it seems. At least the hoist has yet to actually lift the ship.

"We need to get her out of that construct and we gotta open the hangar doors," Tony manages to say between two breaths.

"I'll take the doors," Loki says and pushes off from where he was leaning against the beam to stalk off to his task.

"Okay, how about you get the hoist to open up the clamps and I fire up the engine and get her ready. That way we should be able to quick-start out of here," Tony asks Nebula.

She only nods before moving towards the controls. Tony clambers up the ramp into the ship and makes his way to the cockpit. "Welcome back, Commander," HOUSTON's tinny voice rings through the ship. It proceeds to tell him on which planet this god damn base is and rattles off the atmospheric and gravity-related specifications Tony needs for a successful lift-off, as well. Tony nods to himself as he diligently calculates the needed thrust and checks if the Kree have already done something to the ship that might get them into trouble. But the Catastrophe seems as capable of space fare as always and Tony actually thanks the gods he hasn't yet met for that small gift of luck.

The engine fires up and for a second the ship vibrates in the hold of the clamps before those finally fall away. Once HOUSTON announces Nebula to be on board he turns their flame covered bow towards the hangar doors.

Which are totally iced over.

"The hell?" Tony asks when Loki bursts into the cockpit. He's holding a blue box and has turned blue himself.

"Get ready, they probably have something waiting to shoot at us the moment we get out of there," Loki says. He takes up a stance between Nebula's and Tony's seat, box in both hands in front of his chest. "On three. One-.

Tony decides to trust in this and presses his hand to the speed controls.

"Two."

The engine roars and the thrusters that allow them to hover in place change direction to support a forward movement.

"Three!"

The ship lurches forwards, bursts through the space where the ice crushed the hangar doors out of the way and accelerates further. Tony pulls the nose up. The hull groans and the engine howls in protest. This ship is made to withstand much, but this sudden, steeper and faster than normal take off into space has her protest anyway.

"C'mon Cathy, c'mon!" Tony demands as he pushes even further because anti-spacecraft projectiles whizz around them and the Kree are already on their heels. Their shield stutters into existence but also flickers out every so often as the Catastrophe shoots towards the edge of the planet's atmosphere.

"Reroute energy from the dampeners to the engine and shield, we can take a few more Gs!" Tony orders, but it's already too late. Something hits them hard and Tony's poor, already so battered body nearly blacks out as he's suddenly slammed back into his seat while the ship's straight struggle upwards turns into a corkscrew motion from hell. He's dimly aware of Loki being thrown somewhere and Nebula latching on to the copilot's controls set with violently gritted teeth.

"HOUSTON, aim for the next access point!" She finally forces out.

"I do not recommend entering hyperspace with the current damage to the ship."

"Will the ship fall apart if we go in?"

"No, but air is leaking and-"

"Nearest access point!"

Tony cannot fully remember what happens next. He has blurred memories of an exit point spitting their tumbling ship back into space with a stuttering engine and alarms blaring from all directions. Of Nebula cursing colorfully and just so managing to land them on the nearest habitable planet without crashing all that badly.

He needs fresh air.

He must have said so, because when his brain finally comes back online for real, he is sitting on the edge of the Catastrophe's ramp, drinking water from a bottle most likely given to him by Nebula. She and Loki are talking to his right.

"I hate trash planets," Loki complains. "This is probably going to be worse than Sakaar."

"If only it was like Sakaar, there would be a living civilization and their resources there," Nebula says. "This is a wasteland."

"No," Tony says.

Because he has finally looked around and what he sees is indeed trash. Piled high in all directions, up to the horizon. But not just any trash. This is _scrap metal,_ this is _electronic waste_ , this is a graveyard for _ships_ and other _machines_.

Tony grins.

"This is my paradise."

 

When Pepper and he have children, Tony won't teach them that Starks are made of iron.

Because Starks are made of ideas.

And, the ability to build things from scrap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The claw, it moves! I have been chosen!" - a Toystory quote, if you were wondering.


End file.
